A few days before last week’s Apple Cup, Washington football coach Chris Petersen texted athletic director Jen Cohen and asked if they could meet the morning after the game.



That was a little unusual. Cohen and Petersen usually don’t meet until after the Huskies’ bowl game, and they never meet so soon after the final regular-season game. Cohen had a gut feeling their conversation in the morning would be interesting. She just didn’t know how interesting.



All year, she had joked with Petersen about dreams she’d had in which Petersen suddenly left Washington. And she knew, too, that someday he would actually leave; not for another job, she believed, but for a chance to expand his passion for leadership and culture outside of football. Still, when Petersen walked into her office at 11 a.m. last Saturday morning and told her he was stepping down following the Huskies’ bowl game, she wasn’t prepared.



“I was concerned...