Small-town kid is big state's sports hero

Read the story about Jake Locker, University of Washington quarterback, here. He's the state's college sports hero, even as the Huskies go into the Holiday Bowl with only a 6-6 record. Jake hails from Ferndale, Washington, in Whatcom County. Here's an excerpt that touches on Jake's rural (but metropolitan) roots:

By the time he became the quarterback for the University of Washington, he was cast here as nothing less than a savior, a rural kid summoned to the digital city from a place few of his new fans could find on a map, Ferndale, Wash., population 11,000. His father taped drywall for a living. His grandfather worked in a pulp mill for 37 years. Neither of them graduated from college, but Jake would stir the rescue fantasies of an ambitious university and what the Census Bureau has called the nation’s best-educated city.

The story hints that Locker's loyalty to the Huskies--he was recruited for the NFL as a junior but declined and is finishing his senior year at Washington--is related to his small-town values and humility.