James and Walden: Old adversaries look back on nine Apple Cups, lengthy friendship

YAKIMA — Once upon a time the Apple Cup wasn’t for losers.

It did not match two of the worst teams in all of Division I, two of the worst teams in either school’s history and two of the worst teams ever to compete — and I use the term loosely — in the Pac-10.

From 1978 through 1986 it grew from a one-sided, regular season-ending matchup of schools from opposite sides of the state to a true rivalry, one which came to command attention and respect from throughout the country for both its level of play and the unpredict-ability of its results.

It was also contested between coaches who were at once respected and respectful, with one being a man of few words and the other a man of many.

“Where I spend my winters,” Jim Walden said in a telephone interview earlier this week, “is a little town northwest of Tucson called Marana. There’s a world class golf course near there and some very high rollers. That’s about a million and a half dollars and a bunch of tax brackets from where I’m at, and that’s where Don and Carol James would be.”

WSU coach Jim Walden in the early 1980s. (Photo courtesy of WSU sports information)

They’re not, of course.

If Walden has been known for anything through a long football coaching career that has morphed into radio broadcasting, it’s a southern-drawl gift of gab spiced by good-natured leg pulling.

He also has a longstanding admiration for James, who in turn remains fond of Walden. They’re friends. They have been since before the rise of their cross-state rivalry and the well-documented decline of their beloved programs.

“Jim just did a good job,” James said recently by phone from his winter home in Palm Desert, Calif. “He did pretty well in what a lot of people would consider a little bit of a tough coaching job.

“Not to downplay Pullman, but obviously the L.A. schools have the best shot at the best players, then you’ve got the Arizona schools and the Bay Area schools — all of them have advantages. But Jim recruited good players and then did a good job of coaching them.”

Not to downplay Pullman, maybe, but Walden happily recalled one of James’ tongue-in-cheek jabs at the Cougs.

“What was it Don used to say, that being a Cougar prepared you well for life because your expectations wouldn’t be too high?” he asked, chuckling. “That was pretty damned good.”

Walden’s teams weren’t, however, until 1981. Though WSU lost its eighth straight Apple Cup that year, 23-10 to Rose Bowl-bound Washington in Seattle, it finished 8-2-1 and then lost a 38-36 heartbreaker to Brigham Young in the Holiday Bowl.

Next, of course, came 1982 and the WSU-hosted Apple Cups were moved from Joe Albi Stadium in Spokane to their rightful place in Pullman. And on a cold, dark Nov. 20 of that year, Walden’s Cougars stunned the heavily favored Huskies, 24-20, sending shockwaves throughout the conference.

UW coach Don James after the 1978 Rose Bowl (AP file photo)

Washington State’s win knocked Washington out of the Rose Bowl and put UCLA in. It happened the next year, too, with a 17-6 Cougar win in Seattle sending the Huskies once again to the Aloha Bowl and UCLA back to Pasadena.

Though Washington had a genuinely great team in 1984, finishing 11-1 and beating Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, it would be six more years before the Huskies again played for the roses.

Walden, by then, had left Washington State for Iowa State. But in all likelihood his heart was still in Pullman and he continued to have a very good friend in Seattle.

The Waldens and Jameses traveled extensively, with the coaches participating in a series of global golfing excursions hosted by the late Duffy Daugherty in exchange for Jim’s and Don’s expertise at Daugherty’s coaching clinics.

“We’d travel for 13 days, maybe, and play golf 12,” Walden said. “We’d golf and the wives would shop. There were something like 16 couples, and we had people like LaVell Edwards, Darryl Rogers, John Cooper, Grant Teaff, Johnny Majors and Don and I. It was great fun. And you got to spend time with people you didn’t get to see enough of.”

On one Saturday each year, of course, Walden and James saw plenty of each other — 160 feet away on opposite sidelines.

“We went about our work,” James said, “and there was never any real animosity. I wasn’t happy when they beat us and he wasn’t happy when we beat them.

“It was an important game to a lot of people. It was important to us. But there was never any hatred involved.”

The closest thing to repugnance involving James and Walden came on Aug. 22, 1993, when James resigned in protest of Pac-10 sanctions against his program.

Working at the Bremerton Sun then, I phoned Walden in Ames, Iowa (he was in the book) and told him what happened. Walden was aware of the conflict, of course, but had not yet learned of the sanctions or James’ response, and his reaction was an angry, lengthy rebuttal of the conference and support for his friend.

“Not only are they losing one of the best football coaches in the whole damned country,” Walden said, “they’re losing one of the finest gentlemen we have today in college athletics, and they can’t afford that. None of us can.”

Years earlier, in another phone discussion involving James, the tone was different but the praise similar.

James was about to become the Pac-10’s winningest coach, and Walden was effusive in his praise. Eventually, though, the coach feared that some of his Cougar friends might misinterpret his respect for James as traitor-like. Maybe he’d unknowingly become a Husky.

“I’ll tell you what, Roger,” Walden said. “Put in somewhere that I love Don but I hate purple.”

So I did.

James got a kick out of that story, as well as others exchanged earlier this week.

“Fun guy,” he said. “The great thing about Jim is, when you’re playing golf with him, he’s a guy who can talk in his backswing.”

• Roger Underwood can be reached at 577-7694 or runderwood@yakimaherald.com