Alex "Sonny" Sixkiller was born on September 6, 1951 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, but grew up in Ashland, Oregon where he was an all-state quarterback, as well as an all-conference basketball guard and baseball pitcher. 

He was an icon at the University of Washington Huskies from 1970-1972. Sixlikker was the leading collegiate passer during the 1970 season with an average of 18.6 completions and 227 yards per game. That year he would lead the UW football program to a 6-4 winning record, a significant improvement over the teams previous year 1-9 losing record. 

In 1969, Seattle was a depressed city, economically and otherwise. Boeing's highly touted supersonic transport program had been shot down. Seattle's unemployment rate was the highest of any major city. Major League Baseball yanked the Pilots from Seattle and moved them to Milwaukee. The Sonics were upstarts. The Seahawks hadn't even been thought of.

The town needed a hero. And Sixkiller was it. He became so popular that he rarely had little time to himself. He couldn't even go into the school's Union Building for a hamburger because he would be mobbed by Husky football fans.

Sixkiller would set 15 team passing records while at Washington. He would then go on to spend most of his career playing in the Canadian Football League, but was also a member of the Los Angeles Rams for a short  period of time. Sixkiller’s football career ended when, invited to compete as Dan Fouts’ backup with the San Diego Chargers in 1976, he was unable to try out because of an injured rotator cuff. 

Sonny entered the business world, then landed the TV job for Husky games. He currently works as a color analyst for FSN Northwest. 

Sixkiller’s movie and TV credits are short but memorable. Burt Reynolds, who is one-eighth Cherokee, visited a UW practice in Sixkiller’s sophomore year. Two years later, when the latter didn’t stick with the Rams, Reynolds invited him to Georgia for a part in his football movie, "The Longest Yard." Sixkiller played a halfback on the inmate team that took on the guards. 

Sixkiller and his wife of 30 years, Denise, live in Seattle, where they raised three sons: Casey, a Dartmouth graduate and an aide to Washington senator Patty Murray; Jesse, a government major at Dartmouth; and Tyson, who attended Washington.