Blaine Newnham / Times associate editor
Nothing 'interim' about Dick Thompson's mission

	ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES Dick Thompson calls himself a "football guy," but says he wants to see all UW sports succeed.
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His wife used to kid him that game days at Washington weren't over until they'd all talked on the phone — his dad from Everett, a brother from Hawaii, the two kids, wherever they were.

Celebrating, commiserating, being Huskies.

"Since my dad died at a Husky football game, it is fair to say he lived and died for Husky athletics," said Dick Thompson. "It was the center of his sports universe, as it is ours."

In his old office at Gerberding Hall, the University of Washington interim athletic director posed with an autographed football from the 1997 football team, one Jim Lambright coached.

"I can remember going to Huskies games and watching Lambright play as a smallish defensive end, so short he had to jump up to get his arms around the Cal quarterback, Craig Morton," said Thompson, who grew up around Lambright and current coach Keith Gilbertson in Everett, just as his father had grown up around UW football legends Enoch Bagshaw and George Wilson.

Even at 60, the 6-foot-4 Thompson looks as though he could have rowed for the Huskies at Henley or played on the line for Jim Owens in the 1960s.

He didn't attend Washington as an undergraduate, instead getting a scholarship to play golf at Western Washington University. But he went to UW law school and to just about every football and basketball game since then.

"It is such a source of pride and joy for me and my family," he said. "In the spring, the first thing I read in the sports pages is about the Huskies' spring practice, even before the Mariners."

Thompson knows the pride and pain as well as anyone.

He is beginning what will probably be a six-month tour of duty as interim athletic director. A month ago, he thought he was retiring from his job as the university's chief lobbyist to state government in Olympia, where town sometimes angrily meets gown.

"This is a university that does a billion dollars a year in research," Thompson said, "and when we are measured by our football coach (former coach Rick Neuheisel) lying to a reporter about whether he is interviewing with the San Francisco 49ers, it is very, very frustrating and discouraging.

"I had people in my face asking, 'What kind of a university are you running over there?' at a time when we received two of three national grants given in genomics, and Yale got the other. Stanford didn't get one, Berkeley didn't get one, Harvard didn't get one."

Thompson teaches a class called "executive leadership in the public sector." He has managed United Way in King County, the state's Department of Social and Health Services, and even its Office of Financial Management. Clearly, he knows how to deal with people and problems, and knows the importance of a university's public image.

In fact, as he was being announced Jan. 9 as interim replacement for Barbara Hedges, he made calls to verify his portfolio of educational and work experiences, aware of what had happened to George O'Leary at Notre Dame and concerned about the past year's events at Washington.

"It is a department of the university, it is not a separate institution," said Thompson of athletics, "and we have a president who, if you had only one word to describe him, you would use the word 'integrity.' (UW president) Lee Huntsman is an incredible man of honor. I know the 49er thing cut him to the core, and I believe he told Rick that."

Thompson saw his first football game in 1950, as a 7-year-old, when Hugh McElhenny and Don Heinrich played for the Huskies. He and his dad went to all the games in 1959 and 1960 when Owens changed football on the West Coast.

In the years since, Thompson has found himself watching as many women's basketball game as men's. He closely follows the softball team, and is a big fan of the rowing program.

"We are one of 10 or 12 universities in the country whose athletic departments receive no state or student support, and the taxpayers ought to be happy about that," said Thompson.

"I'm a football guy because I love football and because football provides an economic base for all the other sports. But I also want to see Hec Ed packed for basketball and our crew team be first across the line in the Windermere Cup."

Thompson wants to get the athletic department through probes and penalties involving a football coach gambling and a doctor dispensing drugs.

"When it's over, I'd like to be a forgotten man," he said, "the guy they don't remember because we're focusing again on athletes and events."

More than anything, Thompson is proud of the University of Washington.

"I'm convinced we're going to cure cancer down there," he said of the UW scientists on lower campus, "and as Lee Huntsman says, 'That is just the beginning.' "

Blaine Newnham: 206-464-2364 or bnewnham@seattletimes.com

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