I was a little offended that they decided to pick on the two dead kids (Williams and Anthony Vontoure). It was an attitude of “Let’s pick on the guy whose marriage was bad like many are, and let’s pick on the guy with such severe emotional problems that he couldn’t function.” The only thing that kept Anthony Vontoure from being homeless was football. But they decided to denigrate his memory too.
I thought it was typical of a lot of the mainstream media in the country, where it’s sensationalized in order to sell newspapers and draw attention. I didn’t read all the articles. After I read the article on Curtis I stopped participating in that whole thing. I thought the whole thing was way out of line.
I had known Curtis since he was a junior at high school. I didn’t recruit him while at Colorado (with Rick Neuheisel). When we got to Washington, I lobbied to get Curtis from running back to safety, because I thought he could be a great safety, which he was. Curtis was a young guy who had different things going on with his life that weren’t always positive. But he was an engaging guy, popular with his teammates, and a natural leader. Had he been able to continue with his life away from a wheelchair, or even in a wheelchair, I think he would have been an extremely productive post-graduate adult. That’s my take of him. I’ve got a picture of him in my office here (at the University of Montana), and another one of him at my home. To me, he was pretty inspirational. He was able to climb out of the negative, and turn a lot of things into great positives. I really wish that his life could have extended because I think he would have been a real productive person.
It’s still emotional for me to think about, because it was so devastating. When I sit and think about it, it still hurts me. When I saw Curtis go down (vs. Stanford 10/28/2000), I knew he was hurt bad because he didn’t move. The guys out there trying to tend to him knew it was bad. I remember that I had tears streaming down my face the whole fourth quarter.
Bobby Hauck (former UW assistant & current Head Coach at Montana)