UW Football Notebook | Gellermann set for last call at Husky Stadium

Lou Gellermann's signature phrase, "Hello, Dawg Fans," will bellow through Husky Stadium one last time Saturday evening.

Gellermann, the public-address announcer at Husky Stadium since 1985, announced his retirement Thursday, effective immediately.

"The fact is that my hearing just isn't as good as it once was and I don't feel that I can continue doing the job to the quality that Husky fans deserve," he said. "I just love Husky athletics, and it will be very, very difficult to say goodbye."

Gellermann will greet fans before Washington kicks off against USC, and then he will pass the microphone to interim announcer Eric Radovich, who will announce the remainder of the game.

"Anyone that's done it as long as he's done it, you kind of become an institution," coach Tyrone Willingham said. "It's almost like you can't do something without them being there. I think he'll be missed."

Gellermann, a 1958 UW graduate, started working in the Husky Stadium press box in 1968 and replaced Wendell Broyles in 1985 as the PA announcer for UW football and men's basketball games.

Radovich, who took over as announcer for men's basketball during the 1994-95 season, will take Gellermann's place the rest of the season.

Trojans in a rush

A week after it allowed 333 rushing yards at UCLA, the Washington defense has an even more arduous assignment Saturday. Top-ranked USC rushes for more than 244 yards per game, second in the Pac-10, with a group of blue-chippers that the Trojans mix and match at running back.

Five Trojans have at least 14 carries this season, and four of them are averaging at least 5.5 yards.

"They're all great backs," Huskies linebacker Dan Howell said. "They're at SC, and you can't be a sorry back at SC, let's put it that way."

Sophomore Stafon Johnson leads the group with 256 yards on 32 carries, but he's listed on the depth chart as sharing the starting role with senior Chauncey Washington (23 carries for 127 yards) and sophomore C.J. Gable (13 carries for 143 yards).

"We go with who feels right and who's hot, and there's no science to that that I can explain to you," coach Pete Carroll said. "It's just kind of a feel."

Notes

• LB E.J. Savannah (pinched nerve) is expected to play Saturday, Willingham said. LB Matt Houston (shoulder) is questionable.

• Trojans CB Cary Harris will not play against Washington, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. Sophomore Shareece Wright will replace him in the starting lineup.

• Willingham said the cutoff for UW enrollment was Wednesday. That would appear to mean that freshmen Anthony Boyles and Devin Aguilar won't be able to enroll until the winter.

Each recently retook the ACT in an attempt to get a qualifying test score, and said earlier this week they hoped to get the scores by late this week or early next week. Those scores haven't come in yet. Even if they had enrolled for the fall quarter, both expected to redshirt.

• CB Jordan Murchison has agreed to a stipulated order of continuance in relation to a domestic-violence charge in Seattle last June. If Murchison adheres to guidelines set forth in the order over a two-year period, the charge will be dismissed, a Seattle Municipal Court spokeswoman said.

Murchison, who has been away from the Huskies since early August, was sentenced last week in King County Court to one year in jail with all but two days suspended on a separate assault charge.

Tom Wyrwich: 206-515-5653 or twyrwich@seattletimes.com.

Times staff reporter Bob Condotta contributed to this notebook.

Information in this article, originally published Sept. 29, was corrected Sept. 29. A previous version of this story contained an error. The last name of Lou Gellermann, who retired this week as the longtime public-address announcer at Husky Stadium, was misspelled in the original version of this article.