Washington Football: A thank you letter to Jimmy Lake

An unfortunate end to the Washington football Lakeshow.

Back in 2019, when it was announced that Coach Chris Petersen would be stepping down, it was a mix of different emotions—Sadness that the coach who had put Washington football back on the map was stepping down but also a hope that his replacement could take us even farther. When it was announced that Jimmy Lake was to take over as head coach for the Huskies I think most fans were excited and if they say they weren’t, they are lying.

Player success under Jimmy Lake and a program made proud

Jimmy Lake first arrived at the UW in 2014 as the defensive backs coach and since then had helped to send nine defensive backs onto the NFL and a whopping 20 defensive players overall to the NFL.

Lake may have had his faults as a first-time head coach but it doesn’t take away from what he’s done for the program and the players that he’s helped to achieve their dream. He is the man who helped put Washington on the map as a school that could say that they were the true DBU (Defensive Backs University) and had the players to prove it. For that, I will always be proud of and thankful for it. It gave us a reason to root for teams other than our own on Sundays because we back the players who once dawned the mighty purple and gold.

The business of it

At the end of the day, this is a business. If we as fans are upset by the failures and shortcomings, I can tell you right now that no one is more disappointed than Jimmy Lake. No one wants to fail, no one wants to lose, and no one wants to be fired. Coach Lake just wasn’t the man for the job. He wasn’t a great head coach, there’s no sugarcoating that because he just wasn’t, but he was a good defensive coordinator and he was a great defensive backs coach and that is something that can’t be debated.

Thank you

As a journey of seven years comes to an end I don’t think anything negative should be said about Coach Lake. It’s easy to judge from the stands when we aren’t in the storm of coaching and we as fans have our own standards of what we feel the program should be but by the end of this we shouldn’t hold any ill will. He gave years to this team and he helped build the standards that we now have for the program. Thank you, Coach Lake, may you and our Dawgs have future success.