Admittedly, I’m writing in opposite order.
But not by accident.
Before we talk about the UW men’s track and field team’s second consecutive Pac-12 title, let’s start with the celebration. With the 62-second Montlake mosh, the ecstatic exhale. With Jami Schlueter’s gravelly baritone, booming above Boulder, Colo.
After senior Leo Daschbach’s fifth-place finish in the 5k cemented UW’s team title Sunday, two rows of delirious Dawgs locked arms and swaggered across the track. As they did, Schlueter — a junior decathlete from London — conducted a call and response.
Where my Dawgs at?
Woof.
Where my Dawgs at?
Woof.
Where my Dawgs at?
Woof.
As they approached Husky coach Andy Powell, the rows of runners and jumpers and throwers suddenly split, clearing a purposeful path. Seniors Joe Waskom and Chandler Ault and juniors Prestin Artis and Nathan Green sprung an icy ambush.
Bring on the Gatorade bath(s).
“When we knew we had [the championship] locked down, me and Chandler and Nathan Green were originally only going to get one [Gatorade bucket]. But Nathan had the idea that we went back to back, so let’s get two Gatorades,” Waskom said.
The first was purple.
The second was gold.
Both were equally cold.
But as Powell dripped with electrolytes, the celebration persisted. Schlueter followed a flurry of Washington woofs by singing in a makeshift circle, while teammates locked arms (again) and orbited, echoing the euphoric chorus.
Everywhere we go
(Everywhere we go)
People wanna know
(People wanna know)
Who we are
(Who we are)
Where we come from
(Where we come from)
So we tell them
(So we tell them)
We are the UW
(We are the UW)
The mighty, mighty UW
(The mighty, mighty UW)
Eventually, the celebration devolved into a manic mosh, with two words floating above the fray:
UW
Champs
UW
Champs
So, yes: I started at the end.
But the ending said it all.
Because in a fragmented and individual sport, this was a collective win. The year before Powell’s arrival in 2018, UW finished eighth at the Pac-12 Championships. The Huskies improved to fourth in 2019, third in 2021 (after the 2020 meet was canceled) and second in 2022. Meanwhile, Oregon — where Powell served, first as an assistant and then associate head coach, from 2005 to 2018 — snatched 15 consecutive Pac-12 titles.
The Huskies snapped that streak a year ago, earning the first Pac-12 championship in program history.
But taking the final Pac-12 title would require more of a team-first approach.
“Last year we had a solid meet, but there were plenty of hiccups,” said Powell, who oversees the men’s team. His wife, Maurica Powell, also serves as director of track and field and cross country. “This year if we were going to win, it was going to take a tremendous effort.
“We scored it out ahead of time, and we just [projected it based on] how the entries fell, and we were like third. Your heart kind of sinks a little bit. So it was like, ‘All right, how are we going to do this?’ As a staff we were like, ‘Let’s just pick 28 guys and see if we can get everyone to buy into forgoing individual [glory] and try to make it about the team.’ ”
Which meant, in some cases, taking a more conservative approach to avoid a disastrous DQ. Or knitting together a 4×100 relay — an event the Huskies hadn’t run all season — with two hurdlers, a javelin thrower and a distance runner, to earn a few more precious points.
Or, for javelin thrower Chandler Ault, making good on a guarantee.
“I met [my mom] for dinner the night before, and I was like — I would only say this to her, because I don’t want to be cocky to other people — but I was like, ‘I’ll set the school record on the first throw.’ I actually said that,” Ault recalled.
“But that was more trying to convince myself. I didn’t actually feel physically very good. I don’t know if it was the altitude. A lot of the team didn’t sleep well the first few nights. So I knew I was capable of it, but it wasn’t like, ‘This is going to be the meet.’ ”
And yet, it was. It had to be.
Ault’s first throw soared 254 feet and three inches, setting a Pac-12 championships meet and school record along the way. The Princeton transfer said “I [immediately] knew I won the meet off that throw. But I didn’t know it was going to be as far as it was, the meet record and school record and stuff. I knew it was a good throw. But it just kept going.”
As did the Dawgs.
Also on Friday, Artis — a Bellevue product — became the Huskies’ first Pac-12 champ in the long jump since 2006, going 25-6 ¼ despite a significant headwind. And a year after he lost his left shoe in a water pit and was forced to pull out of the steeplechase, Waskom popped his collar and pumped his fist on Saturday as he crossed the correct finish line.
“I had a little bit of pop still in my legs, and I just felt like my momentum was carrying me across that last water pit,” said Waskom, who stopped at the wrong finish line in the same event in 2021 and was passed, settling for second. “I didn’t really know how much it meant to me until I got over that last barrier. It was the same thing as my redshirt freshman year [2021] where I was in the lead; I was eyeing down that homestretch. This surreal emotion erupted over me.”
The celebration, likewise, was an eruption of emotion — and an example of how the Huskies won.
Team first.
Together.
“It very rarely happens where you feel like, ‘OK, we basically did everything we could,’ ” said Andy Powell, who also repeated as Pac-12 Men’s Track & Field Coach of the Year on Friday. “The coaches were coming up to me [near the end of the weekend], and I was like, ‘Guys, it’s going to be close.’ I was pretty nervous, because I knew how much our team was putting into it.
“[Associate head coach Toby Stevenson] was like, ‘Andy, we couldn’t have done anything any better than what we’re doing.’ We were maximizing it. I think the cool thing, too, is it was all 28 guys. I think sometimes three or four people can carry any sports team. This one I really feel like was everybody.”
2024 Men’s Pac-12 Championship results
Place | Team | Total points
1 | Washington | 150
2 | USC | 141
3 | California | 95
4 | Oregon | 83
5 | UCLA | 67
6 | Arizona | 66
6 (Tie) | Colorado | 66
8 | Washington State | 64
9 | Arizona State | 50
10 | Stanford | 34
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