Alex L. "Sonny" Sixkiller
(born September 6, 1951) is a former
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
player and
sports commentator
In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...
. He is currently a senior manager for business development for Huskies Sports Properties, the rights-holder for University of Washington Athletics.
Early years
Sonny Sixkiller, a member of the
Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee Nation (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ ''Tsalagihi Ayeli'' or ᏣᎳᎩᏰᎵ ''Tsalagiyehli''), also known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three Cherokee federally recognized tribes in the United States. It ...
, was born in
Tahlequah, Oklahoma
Tahlequah ( ; ''Cherokee'': ᏓᎵᏆ, ''daligwa'' ) is a city in Cherokee County, Oklahoma located at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It is part of the Green Country region of Oklahoma and was established as a capital of the 19th-century ...
. A year later, he moved with his family to
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 cen ...
where his father worked in a lumber mill.
He attended
Ashland High School and was a good student and a letterman in football, basketball, and baseball.
In football, Sixkiller was an All-Southern Oregon Conference selection and a second team all-state selection. He was a back-up at quarterback as a sophomore to senior Gene Willis, who later played at
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
. In
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
, he was an all-conference selection. In
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
, he was a pitcher and an all-conference selection. Sixkiller graduated in 1969 and had hoped to stay in-state and play for
Oregon State
Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering col ...
in
Corvallis, but head coach
Dee Andros
Demosthenes Konstandies Andrecopoulos (October 17, 1924 – October 22, 2003) was an American football player, coach, and college athletics He was the head coach at the University of Idaho from 1962 to 1964 and Oregon State University from ...
declined to offer him a
scholarship
A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need.
Scholarsh ...
, wary of his short stature (, ).
University of Washington
On the advice of Willis, head coach Jim Owens
James Donald Owens (March 6, 1927 – June 6, 2009) was an American football player and coach. He was the head coach at the University of Washington from 1957 to 1974, compiling a record of in 18 seasons.
Owens played college football at the U ...
recruited Sixkiller and offered him a scholarship to the University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
in Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
. Due to his name, he was given uniform number 6. Sixkiller became the starting quarterback for the Huskies
Husky is a general term for a dog used in the polar regions, primarily and specifically for work as sled dogs. It refers to a traditional northern type, notable for its cold-weather tolerance and overall hardiness. Modern racing huskies that mai ...
as a sophomore in 1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...
,[ and led the Huskies to a record, a vast improvement over the record in ]1969
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon.
Events January
* January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco.
* January 5
**Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
. He completed 186 passes for 2,303 yards and 15 touchdowns in what many called the Year of The Quarterback.
Sixkiller missed four games as a senior in 1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...
finished his college career with 385 completions for 5,496 yards and 35 touchdowns, and held fifteen school records.1971 *
The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6).
The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history.
Events
Ja ...
and 1972. The Pac-8 Conference
The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...
allowed only one team to play in the postseason, the Rose Bowl, until the 1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
season.
Professional football
Unselected in the 1973 NFL Draft, Sixkiller had tryouts with the Los Angeles Rams
The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The Rams play ...
in 1973,[ and with the ]Toronto Argonauts
The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...
of the Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
in 1974. He signed with the Philadelphia Bell
The Philadelphia Bell was a franchise in the World Football League, which operated in 1974 and a portion of a season in 1975. The Bell played their home games in 1974 at JFK Stadium in South Philadelphia. The team logo was a representation of th ...
of the World Football League
The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...
in September 1974,The Hawaiians
Hawaiians are the indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaiians or The Hawaiians may also refer to:
* The Hawaiians (WFL), a football team in the World Football League from 1974 to 1975
* The Hawaiians (film), ''The Hawaiians'' (film), a 1 ...
in 1975,San Diego Chargers
The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...
in 1976.
Sixkiller was also a cast member in the 1974
Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...
film '' The Longest Yard''. He is currently an executive for sports marketing firm IMG College
LEARFIELD, formerly Learfield IMG College, is a large collegiate sports marketing company, representing more than 200 of the nation's top collegiate properties including the NCAA and its 89 championships, NCAA Football, leading conferences, and ...
, serving his alma mater, the University of Washington.
See also
* Washington Huskies football statistical leaders
The Washington Huskies football statistical leaders are individual statistical leaders of the Washington Huskies football program in various categories. The Huskies represent the University of Washington in the NCAA Division I FBS Pac-12 Conferen ...
References
External links
Just Sports Stats
*
from the ''Mail Tribune'' (September 17, 2004)
*
Sports Press Northwest
– Wayback Machine: Sixkiller becomes an icon
*
Boys' Life
' – October 1971
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sixkiller, Sonny
1951 births
Living people
People from Tahlequah, Oklahoma
Cherokee Nation sportspeople
American football quarterbacks
Philadelphia Bell players
The Hawaiians players
Washington Huskies football players
Sportspeople from Ashland, Oregon
Players of American football from Oklahoma
20th-century Native Americans
Native American sportspeople
21st-century Native Americans