The Seattle Seahawks are hiring former UW Huskies offensive coordinator Jimmie Dougherty as an offensive assistant, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported Friday.

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This will be the first NFL job for the 47-year-old Dougherty, who has spent the past 24 seasons coaching at the college level. He was with the Huskies during the 2024 and 2025 seasons, serving as the team’s passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2024 and offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2025. Dougherty was not the play-caller for UW under head coach Jedd Fisch.

Dougherty left his position at UW in February.

Dougherty also coached at UW from 2009-2012 as wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator under Steve Sarkisian.

Dougherty’s previous college stops include Illinois Wesleyan, San Diego, San Jose State, Michigan, UCLA and Arizona. While at Michigan as an offensive assistant in 2016, he coached alongside Seahawks special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh and under then-head coach Jim Harbaugh. Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald coached under Jim and alongside Jay when he was Michigan’s defensive coordinator in 2021.

Dougherty played quarterback in college at the University of Missouri from 1997-2001 and was the starter in 1999.

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The San Diego Wave and their fans deserved every second of the festive Friday morning that played out at Snapdragon Stadium.

Wave personnel and fans erupted in cheers as Catarina Macario, a star striker with San Diego roots who agreed to a record-setting contract, displayed a Wave No. 20 jersey at an introductory news conference.

Macario, 26, has taken injury detours, but stands indisputably as one of the world’s better goal-scorers among women.

The Torrey Pines High School and San Diego Surf alum’s local pedigree may also boost the fifth-year Wave, who through no fault of the club’s current leaders, lost considerable star power in recent years, contributing to an attendance decline.

At a reported $8 million, the five-year deal is reportedly the most for a women’s soccer player.

Macario, smiling often, labeled her new reality “unreal,” while seated next to Wave sporting director Camille Ashton.

She was 12 when family members, seeking better opportunities, brought her from Brazil to live in San Diego after first visiting Dallas.

“I never would have imagined, I guess, that 12-year-old Cat, not knowing how to speak English, being super scared, would one day come back and get to represent her hometown team,” Macario said. “It’s very special. It’s something I’m very proud of. It will just mean that much more, once I step on the field.”

Ashton called it “a monumental signing.”

Ashton, formerly Camille Levin, won a national championship with Stanford as a player. She said Macario, who came to Stanford after Ashton turned pro, fits well into the possession-driven, uptempo style the Wave have developed in a season-plus under coach Jonas Eidevall.

“Cat is a world-class player of exceptional quality, intelligence and character,” Ashton said. “Her technical ability, vision and goal-scoring instinct make her one of the most exciting talents in the game today. Just as importantly, she brings a professionalism and competitive drive that will both complement and elevate the high standards already established within our squad.”

Turmoil marked the 2024 season, the franchise’s final one under team president Jill Ellis and coach Casey Stoney.

Ellis fired Stoney, the franchise’s coach since its inception, before midseason. The team’s offense was tedious, leading to a ninth-place finish and the franchise missing the playoff cut for the first time. Ellis, amid reports of a harsh work environment, moved on.

In the first full year under Ashton and Eidevall, the Wave’s offense improved and the team made the playoffs, but was bounced in one game.

Macario will give the Wave a better chance to rebound at the gate and on the pitch from the exodus of popular stars Alex Morgan (retirement in 2024), midfielder Jaedyn Shaw (traded at her request in January 2025) and defender Naomi Girma (who was transferred to Chelsea later that month for $1.1 million).

The Macario signing comes 16 months after Lauren Leichtman and Arthur Levine, founders of a private equity firm in Los Angeles, completed a $120-million purchase of the Wave.

The record contract “just shows how serious they are about me, and getting the club to succeed even more,” Macario said.

NWSL leaders facilitated the deal as well. Ashton said the league’s adoption four months ago of the High Impact Player Rule, allowing an exception to the salary cap, “came at an incredibly good time.”

Macario said she knows several Wave players and played with versatile fullback Perle Morroni on France’s top club team, Lyon.

Given that Macario has scored goals at an extraordinary pace throughout her career — with the Surf, Torrey Pines, Stanford, Lyon and Chelsea — there’s only one major concern about how her Wave career will play out:

Health.

A left ACL injury suffered in the final game of her season with Lyon four years ago cost her a full season.

An irritation in her right knee cost her a spot on the U.S. team that won gold at the 2024 Olympics in France.

She was sidelined in recent months at Chelsea, creating uncertainty about her Wave debut.

“We’re confident her best years are ahead,” Ashton said.

Macario offered no details Friday about when she’ll be ready to play for the Wave, who’ll face Chicago in a home game today.

Smiling, she suggested being in San Diego will improve her health.

“Maybe the skies were a little too gray for me,” she quipped about health setbacks in England and France. “The sunshine will help me heal a little bit quicker.”

For a franchise that was enveloped by clouds in 2024, the forecast grew much brighter Friday.

MANLEY HOT SPRINGS — It’s so quiet in these spruce hills and tamarack swamps that 27 hours and 50 miles passed between when Forest Wagner and I said goodbye to one human being at Old Minto and hello to the next near Baker.

Space is in ample supply here on these pressed-in snow trails between towns and villages of Interior Alaska.

Forest and I are out here riding these ephemeral ribbons of blue-white moving westward, with a goal of reaching Nome.

Last Saturday, when it warmed to minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit, I lurched my loaded fat bike out of my home in Fairbanks. Saying goodbye to my wife and dogs, I rumbled eastward on a boot-packed trail that after a mile led to a plowed bike path. I then rolled through the familiar University of Alaska Fairbanks campus and onward 8 miles to Forest’s cabin.

He handed me a mug of coffee and an egg sandwich. Then we started pedaling our fat bikes down Chena Pump Road until we reached the Tanana River.

We found a trail groomed for a multi-sport winter race, turned right, and headed downstream on our home river, there half a mile wide. It was a day when the weather finally nodded toward spring. Fair-a-dise showed up with bluebird skies as the day warmed to 8 degrees Fahrenheit.

After a month of pillowy snows and crazy cold temperatures and re-telling people our new takeoff days to semi-suppressed eye rolls, we were finally unstuck from the glue of town.

If an object wasn’t hanging off our bikes, we didn’t need it. No more fiddling with the load or obsessing on the 7-day weather forecast. Just big ol’ tires humming on dry snow.

Now, five days and 145 miles later, Forest and I are digesting French toast and bacon our friend Steve O’Brien cooked for us as we wait on the dryer in the Manley washeteria. When we get a few dollar bills we will take showers.

It’s a good life here on the trail, just-add-water living at its finest. Eat everything in front of you, apply some sunblock and keep mashing on the pedals.

Steve O’Brien is one of the many people helping us move westward. In one of the most clutch moments, my wife Kristen and our friend Jen Wenrick appeared wearing headlamps on the packed snow ramp off the Tanana River in Nenana. They handed us burgers and fries from the Monderosa.

After a surprise tough day due to soft trail that had us working real hard, those burgers and Cokes were like oxygen.

There have been many other acts of kindness from Jenna and David Jonas, Steve Ketzler, Forest’s dad Joe Wagner and others. Tonic for the body and soul.

We will meet more excellent people, including some old friends, as we ratchet toward Nome.

When my satellite tracker is on, you can see our arrow creeping across the landscape here: https://share.garmin.com/NedRozell.