As word filtered out this week about Joe Jarzynka’s tragic death, grief and disbelief were the obvious first reactions — ones that still linger.
But it also brought back vivid memories of one of the most endearing and unlikely careers in Husky football history. At 5 feet 7 and 175 pounds, a walk-on whose first nickname when he arrived in camp as a redshirt in 1995 was “The Manager,” Jarzynka left UW in 1999 as a true legend.
“He was such a mighty mite,” recalled Marques Tuiasosopo, one of the Husky quarterbacks during Jarzynka’s tenure. “The way he played, you’d think he was a 6-5, 290-pound defensive tackle, just wreaking havoc. That was him, him and his little body doing what he could do. And making people laugh, making people smile.”
The Jarzynka smile — what coach Dick Baird referred to affectionately as “that bleep-eating grin” — is a big part of his lore. So is the shoulder-length blond hair that inspired Seattle Times columnist Blaine Newnham to write of one of Jarzynka’s punt returns, “He ran as if the surf were up, and he was going to be the first to get his board in the water, the yellow locks flowing from beneath his helmet, the fearless, flailing style, arms one way, legs the other, a compelling force on the field even though he is 5 feet 7, 165 pounds.”
Blaine may have shorted him 10 pounds, although Baird said that whenever he passed Jarzynka in the locker room, he’d playfully asked him what he weighed that day. Jarzynka would reply, “I’m afraid of the scale, coach.”
When he finally cut his hair one offseason, “It crushed me,” said Rick Mallory, the Huskies’ special-teams coach during Jarzynka’s magical 1998 season, when Jarzynka was first-team All-Pac-10 on special teams and was named the Huskies’ Most Valuable Player.
“He was like Jeff Spicoli, a surfer dude,” added Mallory, now the offensive-line coach at Middle Tennessee State and referring to Sean Penn’s character in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” “When he had that long, blond hair, running down the field, I used to love watching that. Because that, to me, was Joe. It was beautiful to watch. I was his coach, but I was also a fan.”
Those punt returns, of course, are what made Jarzynka’s name — that, and the way he stepped in to become the Huskies’ kicker early in 1998 when the regular kicker struggled. The first time he told Mallory he should kick, Mallory told him, “Get away from me, man. Just go be the return guy and catch passes, but don’t worry about that.”
Jarzynka kept pestering, however, so Mallory took it to coach Jim Lambright.
“Hey, Jarzynka thinks he can kick field goals.”
“Well, let him do it then,” Mallory recalls Lambright saying.
Despite not having kicked since his days at Gig Harbor High School, Jarzynka shined. He made 6 of 8 field-goal attempts in 1998, including both from more than 40 yards.
“He knew that he could do it,” Mallory said, speaking of Jarzynka’s rise from obscure walk-on to essential player. “And all he was waiting for was his opportunity to just to go out there and play. I don’t know if he had any right to be out there. But he sure made it his point to show that we were all wrong and he was right.”
Or as Baird put it, “He just refused not to play. … Certain guys, you just cannot deny them. Give me about 50 of those guys. That’s how you win games, is to find those kinds of guys that have that kind of electricity to ’em.”
The absolute zenith of the Jarzynka lore came in the Cal game on Oct. 17, 1998. He set a school (and Pac-10) record with 166 punt-return yards in the victory, including one he brought back 91 yards for a game-turning touchdown. After reaching the end zone, Jarzynka kept sprinting toward a chain-link fence on the east end of Husky Stadium that he shook and rattled with gusto (which he later admitted was purely an attempt to get on “SportsCenter”).
Then, huffing and puffing, Jarzynka put his hands on his knees, gathered himself, and kicked the extra point straight through the uprights.
“When he literally scored a touchdown and then trotted out there to kick the extra point, in my mind, and teammates’ mind, that was legendary status,” said Tuiasosopo, now the offensive coordinator at Rice.
Also legendary: the 55-yard touchdown pass Jarzynka — a wide receiver when he wasn’t on special teams — caught from flanker Dane Looker (after a lateral from Tuiasosopo) to put away the 1999 Apple Cup. Said Jarzynka to reporters after the game:
“That’s something we’ll always be able to talk about when we’re 80 years old. The story could be that he threw the ball from the 1-yard line 70 yards, and I had to elude three defenders to get to the end zone.”
Tragically, Jarzynka will never get the chance at 80 to mischievously embellish a story that is epic on its own merits. He was 45 when found dead Sunday morning along the Sol Duc River in the Olympic Peninsula.
The memories, however, will be eternal — such as how Jarzynka refused to fair-catch a punt. It wasn’t always that way, but early in his tenure the coaches told him how much potential yardage he was giving away by letting punts drop, or fair-catching when there was ground to gain. After that, it became a point of pride to Jarzynka to never fair catch, no matter who was bearing down on him in circumstances when even those same coaches felt a fair catch would have been the prudent call.
“We know for a fact that we all heard, ‘Fair catch this ball!’ and we all were like, ‘He’s not going to do that,’ ” Tuiasosopo said. “He would do it even to the detriment of him being able to play again. He was going to do what in essence he was made to do, which is catch balls and make good plays and be fearless.”
Added Tuiasosopo: “Joe was a great man. He was just a ball of energy, full of life. Loved playing football, loved his teammates. And that’s why we loved him. He was never scared, man. He was never going to turn anything down. Every time he was out there as a punt returner, we knew something big could happen.
“He just had a zest for life and a love for people. He was a big part of Husky football, an awesome, awesome teammate. Obviously, we remember him as a football player. But I think what makes it hurt so much is just the great dude that he was and how much he loved us as teammates. I can’t imagine now my college experience without him in it. I mean, you have over 100 different personalities and guys in that locker room, and he just stood out.”
And the Jarzynka legend will stand out forever at the University of Washington.