Spending the Day with Montlake Futures

This past weekend I attended the football practice in an event that was put on by Montlake Futures. Normally these practices are closed to the public so to be able to attend was quite an enticing opportunity.

The event was free to attend if you were a contributor to Montlake Futures (you did have to RSVP in advance) and included a plus one along with the promise of light food and drinks, being able to watch the practice and a small meet and greet with players afterward. I didn’t know what to fully expect going into the event, but here are some details of the experience.

I attended the event with my dad who is a very proud alum that bleeds purple and gold. With 520 being closed, we decided to try to take the light rail. Parking can often be quite competitive for the Tukwila and Angle Lake lots and with a Mariners game also around the same time, we were keeping our fingers crossed. Thankfully we easily found a spot in Tukwila and we were off to Husky Stadium.

We left early with the anticipation of having to hunt for parking spots, so we arrived at the stadium an hour early before the event. We stopped in the team store, which had some nice new items (sadly just not in my size) and with some time still remaining before the event began, we walked around the exterior of the stadium.

It was a gorgeous day on Montlake with the temperatures around the mid to high 70s. There were plenty of people who had rented canoes and were enjoying their time on the water as we walked by. We made our way around to the north side of the stadium and saw the construction site of the new basketball facilities.

There wasn’t much to see, but if you normally enter the stadium on the north side’s main entrance I highly recommend an alternate route for this season. The walking path was extremely reduced due to the construction zone from the north. There was fencing blocking off a path that comes from Hec Ed that may be open for gameday, but I do not know at this time.

When it was time for the event to begin, we checked in at a table and entered Touchdown Terrace. When we entered there was a table full of autographed photos of players and everyone was welcome to two each.

Between my dad and I, we selected Carson Bruener, Denzel Boston, Cam Davis, and Quentin Moore. We grabbed a couple of bags of chips while catering set and sat at the railing in one of the patio suites. We were the first to dig into the delicious Qdoba catering and grabbed some refreshments at the bar as practice began.

Since this article is mainly focused on the event, I’m not going to list a ton of details about the practice other than a few small tidbits.

The defense won the majority of the day and the offense didn’t score their first touchdown until pretty late in the practice. Daniyel Ngata came around the edge and turned on the jets to beat defenders. The offense was very excited and celebrated in the endzone about ten feet away from us.

• One player that also caught my eye was Redshirt Freshman Keith Reynolds. He is on the smaller side, but he is a problem for defenders in space. He is exceptionally quick and has great top-end space as well. He showed great hands and the yards after catch ability.
• The position group that caught my eye the most was the edge group. Durfee was out there for the first time in a while since his injury, Maurice Heims looked excellent, Jayden Wayne and Jacob Lane also had a good practice.
• Might there be a competition for the starting punter job? Jack McCallister was the starter last year, but walk-on Junior Adam Saul was hard to ignore. He stands out from the other specialists at 6’6 but has the talent to boot. His punts were longer and had more hangtime than McCallister’s for most of the day. Despite his long frame, his kicking motion was very smooth.
• Speaking of kickers, one of the highlights for the fans at the experience was Grady Gross practicing field goal attempts toward our end zone. Why was it a highlight? Not only was he kicking with the net down so the ball would occasionally end up in the terrace, but he was kicking from out of bounds on the sideline. I don’t think I have seen a kicker practice outside of the hash marks before, so it was something that caught my eye. Gross looks to have gotten even stronger than last year in the off-season and it shows in his kickoff length and hang time.

Getting back to the event, Tony Castricone was there engaging with fans. He was very sociable and very nice to everyone who he spoke with. You can hear the passion he has for the Dawgs in his voice and it is quite evident that it is more than just a job for him.

After the practice concluded, the meet and greet was scheduled to begin. Initially, the plan was for the players to come over to the terrace, but the entire team ended up going straight to the locker room. As a result, we all got to go onto the field. Anytime you get to touch the turf of Husky Stadium is a special treat, so I was happy that they changed the meeting spot.

While the fans were hanging out near the west endzone, staff members of Montlake Futures would go into the tunnel and return with a player. The first that came out was Landen Hatchett. The Montlake Futures staff ushered him over directly to where a lot of the younger kids with autograph books were gathered, introduced Landen, and let them know that Landen was available for autographs and pictures.

I thought it was a very classy move to have the kids get the first opportunity to meet the players when they came out. I think many people reading this, this author included, remember attending a Husky Picture Day when they were younger and the joy they felt getting to meet the players they admired.

Some of the other players who joined Hatchett included Kamren Fabiculanan, Elijah Jackson, Will Rogers, Denzel Boston, and Jonah Coleman. Although many more people were on the RSVP list, only about 40 people attended the event. There were about 15-20 players total so there was a lot of time for one-on-one interaction.

I got the chance to speak with Rogers and asked him what food is missing from Mississippi and he said shrimp and grits. He also mentioned a general lack of availability of iced tea. With so few fans overall, it was really nice to see the players chatting among themselves and having fun with each other. Coleman and Rogers appear to already have a very good bond despite only having known each other since January.

It is a shame there was a schedule conflict with the Mariners Game and Seahawks pre-season game because the event was a lot of fun.

Despite more of the team being available for the Raise the Woof and the B1G Husky Kickoff, I think being able to have a more intimate setting like this with the players who normally have long lines to see them was very special and memorable.

I thought that the Montlake Futures staff in attendance did an excellent job running the event and keeping everyone well-informed as the evening progressed. I will be on the lookout for more of the events to attend in the future and I hope that more fans can join next time as well.