Where They Are Now: Bill Cahill, Huskies football

Bill Cahill was caught in football rush hour. There was traffic everywhere, with USC linemen practically twice his size filling lanes and leading another trademark sweep around the corner.

The Washington free safety had only one place to go. He floored it straight ahead. Squeezing through a tiny gap, he crashed violently into Trojans tailback Lou Harris, leaving him crumpled on the ground and unable to continue playing in the 1971 contest at Husky Stadium.

"We hit full speed," Cahill said. "He was coming up. I was coming up. I saw him first. It was ka-boom. I went, 'Whoa, that was a good hit.' I was spinning around on the AstroTurf, and it was, 'How did I get here?' It was a big Husky hit. That was our theme: We hit people."

Cahill, 57, could serve as a valuable lesson for Washington's current players, now trying to distance themselves from a disastrous 0-12 season. Football is a mind-set, and theirs has to change.

The slender 5-foot-11, 180-pound defensive back from Bellevue High School played with great courage at all times, sharing in a teamwide trait that was responsible for rescuing the UW program the last time it was down and out, finishing 1-9 in 1969.

"We had a personality on that team that was absolutely fun and high performance, which I don't think you can separate," Cahill said. "We had a lot of small, athletic guys. What was common with that group was we all came from winning programs. We knew how to win. Losing wasn't in the cards."

While quarterback Sonny Sixkiller drew the biggest headlines because of his passing arm and catchy surname, Cahill mesmerized everyone with his kamikaze-style play, his helmet-cracking collisions echoing through Husky Stadium.

He was taught to be offensive in his defensive approach, to go for the ball, to run through the play, to be the aggressor. He was toughened up in practice.

"They'd give linebackers the ball, with the dummies spaced not very far apart, and the defensive backs had to tackle them," Cahill said. "That was brutal. You learned how to tackle, to use leverage, to use speed, or you couldn't survive. You learned little tricks. Then it started to be fun."

A three-year UW starter, he intercepted nine career passes, returning one 15 yards for a touchdown against Washington State, and was a dynamic punt returner, running one back 70 yards for a score against Illinois.

Because of his personal experience, Cahill remains confident another Huskies resurgence can't be far off. He watched the program bottom out while he was a freshman and unable to help, and then joined in the recovery process that brought 6-4, 8-3 and 8-3 seasons.

"The turnaround for the Huskies will happen," he said. "After the dire straits of a winless season, we have something to look forward to. It will be sweet. Plan on the comeback. But one requirement with the new coach is we all have to get behind him and not second-guess him."

Cahill spent two seasons with the Buffalo Bills, mostly on special teams. On the day O.J. Simpson set the then-NFL rushing record with 2,003 yards in a season in a nationally televised game, the former UW player stole some of the spotlight by returning a punt 51 yards for a score against the New York Jets.

For the past 24 years, Cahill has worked for Boeing, lately as a production operations manager for the 787 Dreamliner at the Everett plant. The Bellevue resident is divorced with two children, Mackenzie, 22, and Connor, 19, students at Central Washington and Washington State, respectively.

While he waits for his Huskies to rebound, he's reconnected in recent years with the Bellevue football program. He came out to watch a nephew play for the Wolverines, was struck by the positive vibe coach Butch Goncharoff's program gives off and remains involved. He has agreed to be part of a mentoring program planned next season for Bellevue football players.

Cahill's girlfriend is Becky Gray, a Bellevue real estate agent whose son was a member of the Wolverines' recent state championship team. Alex Gray was a defensive end who bravely played all season with a torn knee ligament, but was hospitalized and ruled out of the state semifinals after suffering a shoulder injury in a bus rollover accident before the game. He defied everyone by making it back onto the field with all of his aches and pains and finishing out the title run.

"That was really special," Cahill said. "That was amazing. What a warrior."

Bellevue High School football has produced at least two of them.