Has it really been 30 years?

We were UW freshmen in the fall of 1981, and perhaps the biggest perk of being a student was getting great football seats for about four bucks a ticket. Jeff and I had tickets in the Brown section, which although not as good as the Purple section, was pretty close to midfield. We would get to the games before the gates opened, ready to run to the best seat possible in our section.

Jeff and I first started going to some Husky games when we were little, not too long after he spit on me in first grade, causing me to tell my teacher. Somehow, and neither us knows why, that was the start of an amazing friendship. We sat in the end zones with our parents during our first Husky games, college still well more than a decade away.

As students at UW, we went to every Husky home game together in our first two years, and made a trip to Eugene to see the Huskies beat the Ducks.

I will never forget how cold we were when the Huskies beat USC 13-3 in monsoon-like weather -- and how much we didn't care that we were freezing when Chuck Nelson gave the Huskies a fourth-quarter lead with a long field goal and then Fred Small recovered the kickoff in the end zone for a touchdown.

We were there for the first wave, which we thought was great until Stanford's John Elway started an amazing comeback, which to this day we blame on the wave. The fans didn't know enough not to do the wave when the Huskies had the ball.

Jeff moved into the dorm after his sophomore year, and we quit going to games together. After college, our lives diverged. We moved apart, we both started families.

But we never lost touch.We've been to bowl games together, and he was the best man at my wedding, but we rarely talk these days. Unless, of course, the Huskies are playing, and he wants to tell me how mad he is at Nick Holt, or Jake Locker or whoever else makes a bad play.

Jeff has not been back to Husky Stadium since he graduated more than 25 years ago. Finally, after years of me nagging him, he and his wife are flying from Southern California to see next Saturday's game against Oregon in the final game at Husky Stadium before it is renovated.

The end of the grand old building in its current state will seem a lot like losing an old friend, but I am mostly just excited. I can't wait to relive some memories with an even dearer friend.

If you'd like to write a Take 2 post, email Sports Editor Don Shelton at dshelton@seattletimes.com or sports@seattletimes.com.