Freshman orientation with Emma Stockholm

Not only did Emma Stockholm have to wait until the calendar flipped to 2017 for her freshman orientation article. Not only did she have to wait 15 games into the season and read stories on her four fellow freshmen before Christmas. Now she's getting upstaged by football?

It's true, but we can all agree the situation certainly warrants it. First, it's football, king of all sports, mover of the public needle. Second, the clock is ticking, like down to the hour, if this is going to be truly relevant.

You see, Trey Adams was sitting in the south-end seats inside Dahlberg Arena last week for Montana's home games against Idaho and Eastern Washington, inconspicuous in a stocking cap pulled low, either as a fashion choice or to protect his identity.

You might have walked right by him, considering he looked pretty much like every other fan. That is until he got out of his seat. Guys who are 6-feet-8 and nearly 310 pounds tend to stand out, particularly at Lady Griz games.

With Alabama facing Clemson on Monday night in Tampa in the College Football Playoff championship game, Adams' presence in Missoula, while extremely disappointing to him, provided a unique opportunity to get a breakdown of the Crimson Tide prior to Monday night's kickoff.

Adams's opinion comes with a bit of authority, considering he played against Alabama just nine days ago in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta. The sophomore is Washington's starting left tackle, has been since the second game of his freshman year, quarterback Jake Browning's blindside protector.

Against Alabama, the Huskies went 64 yards in eight plays on their second possession to go up 7-0 on a Browning scoring pass, and totaled 103 yards of offense through their first three possessions. But then the nation's top-ranked defense took over.

Washington had just 91 yards on its final 11 possessions, 44 for the entirety of the second half.

Consider this your insider championship game primer, from someone's who's been there (though his breakdown is hardly a secret).

"They don't miss their assignments very often," said Adams, a first-team All-Pac 12 selection last fall, of Alabama's defense.

"If you don't miss your assignments and you have big, strong, athletic guys, you're going to have a good defense. They do their jobs really well. We weren't able to capitalize on their mistakes enough, and they won."

Which is why Adams was in Missoula last week instead of preparing to face Clemson on Monday night.

Still, it was a breakout season for the Huskies, something to be proud of, and a year ahead of schedule according to people who know these things. Three games over .500 in Chris Petersen's first two years as coach, Washington finished 12-2 in 2016, with a pair of quality losses: USC and Alabama.

"I knew we'd be good, but I didn't expect it to happen this year," Adams said. "This was a good look-back-at-it kind of thing for us to realize what we can do and what it takes to get there. Everybody was happy being Pac-12 champions, but a national championship is the next goal."

As for this year's national championship game and a prediction, Adams walks the safe line.

We're not claiming Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables has been reading the freshman orientation series, but why risk it and provide him with bulletin-board material for a future Clemson-Washington matchup by Adams saying Alabama is going to roll and have its way on Monday night?

"I can't choose a team. We will just have to find out, and I can't wait to watch," said Adams. "It will be kind of weird knowing we could have been in that game though."

You were told at the start that Emma Stockholm was going to be upstaged, and she has been. Thoroughly. And now you're probably wondering, what does any of this have to do with her anyway? Plenty, considering Adams was in town last week to watch Stockholm play.

Just two years ago, Adams was a senior at Wenatchee High in central Washington. Up Highway 2 and then a little farther up Highway 97 sits Chelan, the home base of the 6-foot-2 Stockholm, who was a year younger than Adams and terrorizing the Caribou Trail League in both volleyball and basketball.

A Twitter message, followed by a text message, and the two have been together ever since, even with Adams's now five-year-old tonsorial decision to go with a mullet, which has a lot of partying going on in the back these days.

"It's a package deal," says Stockholm. "But his hair is part of the good. It makes him different."

Of course, basing an article on a college relationship can be risky. Shocking, but it turns out they don't have a 100-percent success rate. But Stockholm gave its publicity her full blessing. She is that confident in the couple's staying power. "He's a part of me. We intend it for the long run," she says.

Had Adams not traveled to Missoula last week or had their relationship not come up in an interview, there were other angles to take with this article.

One touched on football (again). Plenty of people remember Montana's victory over North Dakota State at Washington-Grizzly Stadium to open the 2015 season. Almost as memorable was the smoke-filled air that had rumors swirling that the game would be moved, or postponed, or cancelled.

That smoke came from the Chelan (sha-LANN) Complex fires, which started with a lightning strike at 4:30 in the morning that shook Stockholm out of bed.

The lightning hit Chelan Butte south of town. "They decided to let it burn out, but the winds picked up and carried it," she says. Nearly 100 homes and businesses were destroyed.

She has a before photo of the butte on her phone and an after image as well. The first one looks like it was taken in color, the second in black and white, so contrasting were the results of the blaze.

That's why people watching the Montana-North Dakota State game on ESPN saw a Missoula that looked like a dystopia.

Or this article could have taken a basketball (finally) angle. Nearly two decades ago, Barbara Berry started The Way to Win, a basketball development program in Washington that has sent more than 20 players on to play collegiately.

One was former Lady Griz Alyssa Smith. Another is current Lady Griz Sierra Anderson.

Stockholm started playing club basketball in the eighth grade with a team in Spokane. She joined Berry's program following her junior year of high school, and if she hadn't, she's convinced she wouldn't be playing at Montana.

"No way. I wouldn't have gotten the exposure, and I wouldn't have developed as a player," says Stockholm, whose mom works as a mammogram technician in Wenatchee. Her dad, who is 6-foot-2, manages the Alpen Rose Inn in Leavenworth. "Barb taught me everything. She is amazing."

Portland State and Eastern Washington made offers, as did Western Washington and Central Washington, "but I wanted to go big," says Stockholm, now part of a two-sided Division I relationship. (The collegiate rights to any future offspring are hereby held by Shannon Schweyen and Bob Stitt.)

"Barb thought this was the place for me, and I totally agreed. I knew it once I came here. I loved everything about it."

Of course she hasn't loved everything about it since October. Nobody has. Stockholm went from a possible redshirt candidate to part-time starter because of injuries that began in early October and are still mounting.

"I can't believe all the injuries that have happened and are continuing to happen," says Stockholm, who had to play games earlier this season with a mask after breaking her nose. "We've had to grow up fast, but it's been good for us freshmen. The next couple of years, I think we're going to be pretty good."

Stockholm's anticipation for next year should be yours as well, if you believe what she says. Unlike Adams, who didn't want to step too far out on a limb, Stockholm doesn't mind putting things out there, even if it means throwing some shade toward one of Adams' fellow athletes at Washington.

Kelsey Plum leads the nation in scoring at more than 30 points per game for the now No. 8 Huskies. Earlier this season she broke the Pac-12 career scoring record. Given the choice between Plum and Valley, Stockholm would go with the latter.

"Kayleigh is amazing," says the elementary education major, who got a full helping of Valley in the preseason. "If I had to choose between her and Kelsey Plum, I'd pick Kayleigh, hands down. I think she's a better player."

Since this article started with a football connection, it may as well wrap up with one as well, considering the experiences of Adams and Stockholm are not that different. He's just one year ahead, both in age and in helping to get his team turned around.

He signed on to join a program that wanted to return to its days as a national contender. Washington made it back sooner than most expected. Adams did his part. Now it's up to Stockholm. She signed with a traditional powerhouse. The team's goal: make sure this season is merely an aberration.

"Next year is going to be completely different if everybody makes it back," she says. "We'll get back to being the Montana everybody knows."

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