Bad Apples Mar Cup Game Letter Of The Week: From Dec. 5

Fox Sports Northwest televised the recent Apple Cup football game between Washington State University Cougars and the University of Washington Huskies. A fan was shown on camera displaying a sweatshirt that said “Just remember - Ted Bundy was a Husky.”

During the Nov. 24 tape-delayed broadcast, announcers Bud Nameck and Clete Casper laughed on air and said, “That’s a good one.”

Guest announcer Sonny Sixkiller, who quarterbacked the Huskies in the early 1970s, said it was inappropriate. They asked why, and when Sixkiller could not bring himself to respond, they sneered at him, “Because you’re a Husky.”

The punch line to this sick joke is that a notorious serial killer abducted, raped and murdered 35 young women. The only actual connection these crimes have to Huskies is that two teenage UW students were among the first victims in the early 1970s. One was abducted outside her sorority a few doors down Greek row from Sixkiller’s fraternity. Other victims were students at Oregon State, Evergreen State College in Olympia and Central Washington University in Ellensburg plus an Eastern Washington University graduate who was from Spokane. The last victim was a 12-yearold girl from Lake City, Fla.

It doesn’t take a Husky to know it was inappropriate for a network and its announcers to air and endorse a cruel joke that trivialized and revictimized those young women and their families, friends and classmates. And for what? Sport?

Those young women were victimized by a sick degenerate. To anyone who might think that’s “a good one,” what’s your excuse? Mark Lehinger Spokane

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