Gore may be glad he skipped speech at UW

Al Gore may be thankful he avoided a sudden change in climate at Husky Stadium over the weekend.

It turns out the former vice president was the mysterious speaker the University of Washington had been courting for months to give this year's commencement address, which went soggily awry Saturday.

The talks with Gore fell through in late March, leaving UW officials scrambling for a replacement. Eventually they asked U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks — who, on Saturday, faced a rainstorm and an impatient, heckling crowd. At one point, a student walked in front of Dicks and motioned him to hurry up.

"It was painful," Dicks acknowledged Tuesday. "It was about as bad a day as you could get. It was a very long program, the weather conditions were terrible and, obviously, one student came up and yelled at me."

Dicks, D-Bremerton, said he initially was enlisted by the UW to help persuade Gore, whom he considers a personal friend, to deliver the speech.

"I talked to Al," Dicks said. "Al had a conflicting trip and couldn't be there."

Coincidentally, Gore was in Seattle early last week. But by the weekend, he was on his way to Istanbul, Turkey, a Gore spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail.

"In general, he tries very hard to honor requests from Mr. Dicks; they have a long, very strong relationship," the spokeswoman wrote.

UW officials, meanwhile, were continuing their policy Tuesday of remaining mum on the identity of the mystery speaker.

Dicks said he remains proud of the substance of his speech, which touched on environmental issues such as climate change and the need to clean up Puget Sound. He said he's sure the audience was restless because of the weather rather than the substance of his speech.

"When I went out to practice the day before, I had my sunglasses on," Dicks said. "By Saturday, the whole thing had turned into a debacle."

Dicks said his right ear was clogged and he was so focused on reading his 15-minute speech he didn't notice the crowd's growing restlessness. He was aware of a rumbling, he said, but had heard similar sounds at Husky Stadium in his football-playing days and didn't think too much of it.

"Under the circumstances, I should have shortened the speech, but I didn't do it and paid a price for it," he said. "I didn't know what was happening. My wife told me later it was stamping feet in the stands. She was absolutely convinced it was because it was the middle of a huge rainstorm and it was hard to get people to sit there."

Dicks, who holds two degrees from UW and played football there, said the university should move commencement to Safeco Field or some other covered venue "so they don't embarrass themselves again."

UW spokesman Norm Arkans said officials will continue evaluating options, but that having the event on campus holds an emotional significance for students and that moving it could pose big logistical problems. Arkans added that — two deluges in the past three years notwithstanding — rain is unusual during June commencement.

He did say the UW will start its search for next year's speaker over the summer, earlier than it has in the past.

Dicks, meanwhile, said he's had hecklers in town-hall-style speeches before but nothing that's gone wrong on the scale of Saturday's event.

To be fair, Dicks did get loud applause at times — such as when he mentioned how the Huskies beat the Cougars three years running when he was playing on the team in the early 1960s and when he talked about the Democrats taking control of Congress last year.

"At the end of the speech, the applause was very good," Dicks added.

"They were glad it was over."

Nick Perry: 206-515-5639 or nperry@seattletimes.com. Seattle Times staff reporter Lornet Turnbull contributed.