column, was the first to introduce what I termed “extreme conditioning methods” to West Coast football. This prompted one of the most highly regarded strength and conditioning coaches in the Cincinnati area to contact me for specific details. Owens truly did use extreme methods, and his “Death March” scrimmage has become part of Husky football folklore. Introducing the “Challenge Method” of determining starters was part of the quest for fitness and toughness, with any member of the team free to challenge one of his higher placed position mates for the right to keep that placement on the depth chart. Because Owens and his staff taught blocking and tackling techniques that utilized the forehead as the initial point of contact, he was the first to institute the use of neck exercises and what has come to be called “manual resistance” neck work to increase the strength and size of his players’ cervical spine musculature. With brush blocking and shoulder blocking techniques very much the standard for almost every other team on the coast, his purple-clad wild dogs were seen as dangerous and damaging. That Owens would actively participate and run punt coverage drills with his team during the week, added to the mystique of his early years.

As former Oakland Raiders star Ben Davidson stated, “I would say his (Owens) coaching style would not play these days. You couldn’t do that to people anymore…I always thought his strong point was his discipline.” Davidson noted that even summer camp with the demanding Vincent Lombardi was “no sweat” compared to what he had gone through at Washington. Just as Bryant had attracted criticism because of the volume and intensity of his conditioning program, so did Owens with many, especially in retrospect, expressing that he had “overdone it” with many of his physical demands. Still, as Davidson indicated, discipline and a true feeling of camaraderie carried those Husky teams, and this grew from the physical demands made upon the players. Unexpectedly, as the photo of a young University Of Washington two-way end named Ben Davidson indicates, the same level of discipline did not carry over into the equipment room.