After Washington’s 54-7 victory over Colorado last season, UW head coach Kalen DeBoer sat in the old team room waiting for the Washington pool reporters to get in their seats.

As he sat there he checked his phone for messages that came in during the game, when a familiar voice came from his right behind him—it belonged to running back Wayne Taulapaia.

“Hey,” Kalen DeBoer said looking up from his phone in his left hand.  Extending a hand for a “bro” type of handshake, Taulapapa wanted to thank his head coach for the help through an emotionally draining week. Three of the start running back’s  former teammates at Virginia were killed by another teammate the previous Sunday.

They were junior receiver Lavel Davis Jr. from South Carolina; junior receiver Devin Chandler from North Carolina; and junior edge defender D’Sean Perry from Florida has been murdered by a former teammate at University of Virginia.

Quickly rising to his feet, DeBoer hugged the Virginia-transfer, saying, “I love you, man.”

The rest of the conversation was inaudible, but the message was loud and clear:  We’re family and we’re in this together.

It didn’t matter that there were a dozen or so strangers in the room, the two men were unabashed about their bond.

The hug stood in stark contrast to nearly 12 months earlier when the team was falling apart.

“We all collectively put our arms around him,” Grubb said the day after the shooting about the love extended to Taulapapa. “He’s hurting. He knew those kids well. It’s a tough time for him right now. I know he’ll give a lot of support to those families.”

At 8:58 Saturday evening Taulapapa tweeted out 3 emojis: a smile, a Husky and a purple umbrella that has come to symbolize “Purple Reign”.  The Huskies had just left a quieted Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon.

27 hours later he retweeted a University of Virginia tweet of a description of the suspected of a triple homicide of three of his former Cavalier teammates.

Taulapa carried a heavy heart into the Colorado game.

Taulapapa found out in his darkest hour that “Family” isn’t a buzz word or “vibe” or a “culture” to DeBoer and his football family.

It’s who he is—how he’s wired.

DeBoer’s “family” runs just like a normal family.  It ranges from the discipline doled out to Tybo Rogers and Diesel Gordon who violated team rules to the love and support afforded Taulapapa.

It’s how he’s rewired the team.

“(We) created a community where (he) could talk to people if he needed,” Elijah Jackson said.  “We showed him love.”

How Taulapapa was surrounded with the family love has helped Jackson understand that DeBoer and his coaches truly care about him as an individual.

“The coaching staff promised my parents that they’d take care of me,” he said, beginning to smile.  “They’re my second family here.  Being away from my mom, my dad, my little sisters, my brother—I need that family aspect to feel nurtured and loved when I’m away from my family.”

DeBoer has instilled the “family culture” but the players have taken the concept and have run with it, taking it to another level.

“It’s a lot of the culture is player-led,” said Jackson.  “It’s not just d-linemen hanging out with quarterbacks; it’s a lot of corners hanging out with o-linemen.”

Their bonds cross every social construct or constraint that today’s society has erected.  As a result they’re free to be themselves.  Like any brothers they may fight but they also forgive.

“We’re intertwined,” he said speaking of the team’s strength like a braided rope.  “We mingle with each other.”

And the parents back home have taken note.

”I can’t get much one-on-one time with my son any more,” laughed Ray “Rosey” Rosengarten.

FaceTime calls where Ray used to be able to catch up with his All-American candidate right tackle son, Roger are now sessions where the phone is passed around the room.

”I’ll call Roger up and we’ll talk, but then he’ll say, ‘say hi to so-and-so and hands the phone to a teammate’,” Ray said.  “But it’s not just o-linemen, there are guys from different positions and even guys from the defense.”

As the phone gets passed around the room Ray says he can feel the closeness across the team.

Jackson agreed.

”We’re not a team that’s like because I’m a corner do imma kick it with the corners.  Or I’m on defense so imma hang with the defense,” the sophomore cornerback said.

“It’s just different now,” Ray said of DeBoer’s off-the-field transformation of the.  “They have each other’s backs on and off the field.”

It’s not just Ray who has said this but other parents have said the same thing.

Under Chris Petersen the team was close but through the pandemic restrictions many friendships were fractured and even lost.  So when Kalen DeBoer he inherited a team starved for wins, but also craving the connections that Covid had stripped away.

Like with Taulapapa, the team is welcoming to newcomers regardless a high schooler committing like Jason Robinson, an incoming freshmen like Taeshaun Lyons or Jabbar Mohammad from the Transfer Portal.

”When Jabbar Mohammad’s dad came in here he introduced the whole DB corps to him,” Jackson recalled of transfer from Oklahoma State early days after the move.  “That’s the next step: now I know his dad.  Now I’m closer to his personal life.  It’s building that camaraderie aspect and family that’s huge.”

Huge in the bond but also huge regaining what’s the pandemic took away.  The  players fully appreciate what they were missing in addition to playing a sport—and they won’t ever take the football brotherhood for granted again.

Kind of like the message that DeBoer said that he hoped was delivered to his suspended freshman, Gordon and Rogers:

“One of the best ways to learn is to take football away, right?” DeBoer said, sounding like a father.

Like a DawgFather?