Willingham doing things his way at Washington

1. "There isn't a hole on any course that I can't bogey," said Tyrone Willingham. "If you get lackadaisical and don't pay attention to detail, it happens. How many of us can stay in the moment?"

2. Things are definitely different at Washington, where players seem to matter both more and less, recognized as golfers and students by the new coach, but also lost in the anonymity of new uniforms without names on their backs.

3. Like Owens did those two years, the 2005 Huskies will be led by four captains selected each week. Game captains. It was not unlike Willingham's first year at Notre Dame, in 2002, where he was the first coach to use weekly captains since Frank Leahy in 1946.

"You never want to exclude leadership," said Willingham, in explaining his failure to have seasonlong captains. "There may be 20 leaders on this team and we want to give them an opportunity to step forward."

He said at season's end, the players will vote for those who have been the best leaders. In other words, they will be picked for what they've done and not who they are.

"We're trying to change a culture," said Willingham. "Today we are always faced with the I and the me, not just in sports but in the workplace. It is always a battle between the individual and the group. If you play as a team, it's amazing what can be accomplished."

4. You would think, as serious as he is, the golf clubs would go in the closet until spring. Keith Gilbertson, as the coach at California, was roasted by a Bay Area writer for playing during the season as somehow symbolic of his lack of commitment.

"It depends on the year, the weather, a lot of things," said Willingham. "The year we went to the Rose Bowl [at Stanford] I played every Friday, five, six, maybe nine holes, and then went to work.

"If the president of United States can play golf — and he has the fate of the whole world in his hands — why can't a football coach?

"If you went upstairs and read a book, what's the difference? You see, I'm comfortable with who I am."

5. Before he invited the players to play golf with the media, he checked with the NCAA to see there was no violation of the rules.

"As a coach today, you wouldn't dare do anything without checking," he said. "You are always checking."