SEATTLE >> For nearly 60 years, Mark Evans says, his family has been attending University of Washington football games.

But it wasn’t until the past five that they realized what they had been missing.

That’s when they started commuting to the game on a 34-foot boat and “boat-gating,” as the Puget Sound version of tailgating is celebrated here.

“There’s nothing like the experience of going to a game on a boat,” said Evans, a Seattle medical insurance executive. “Nothing. It is a 1,000 percent enhancement.”

When the University of Hawaii plays Washington at Husky Stadium on Saturday there will be approximately 60,000 fans in the stadium, some of whom have stepped off more than 250 boats — from luxury yachts to dinghies — moored just outside of it on Lake Washington officials predict.

Opponents might have better ground games or aerial attacks, but Huskies fans claim it as a matter of fierce pride that they have no peer when it comes to mixing water and football on a Saturday afternoon.

“It is a sight to see when you have all those boats on the lake at a home game,” Evans said.

Only at one other school, Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium, is there an arrival-byboat experience, UW officials say. But Washington fans maintain that their setting, from nature’s surrounding wonders such as snow-topped Mt. Rainier to locally caught salmon on the grill replete with area wines, is unique.

The atmosphere surrounding a game here is a large part of why The Sporting News listed Husky Stadium as one of the “five college football stadiums every fan should see before they die.”

Even UH head coach Greg McMackin, who will be more concerned with what goes on between the white lines on Saturday, observes from previous experience of having lived in Seattle, “When you have the snow on the mountains, the sun and the beauty of the lake, it is one of the best settings going.”

In Seattle, fans reserve moorings far in advance at prices ranging from $39 to $140 depending on the size of the craft, a spokeswoman said. Dozens of others tie up with other boats amid the calm waters of the lake, and the school runs shuttles to ferry them in and back.

“That’s where the fun is,” Evans said. “With all the boats bunched together you can’t help but get to know

Washington football fan your neighbors and make friendships.”

It is one reason why, even in the trying times of the Huskies’ 0-12 2008 season, fans still turned out.

“Of course,” said one fan, “some of them left the game early and went back to their boats to tailgate, too.”

Meanwhile, charter companies and area restaurants offer tours and drop off hundreds more at the shore that abuts the south end of campus, about 500 feet from the stadium.

“When visitors come there they get into the festivities, too,” Evans said. “There must have been several hundred Nebraska fans, all in red, who chartered the big boats to bring them to the game last year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some Hawaii fans doing the same for this one.”

For all the chants that are exchanged between hometown fans and visitors on the walk into the stadium, “there is a lot of fun,” said Evans, who said he was invited to Lincoln, Neb., this year to partake in Cornhuskers-style tailgates by Nebraska fans.

It was a homecoming for cornerback Dee Maggitt and linebacker Aaron Brown. Both were raised in Washington.

“It’s good to be back home,” said Maggitt, a second-year freshman.

While being recruited, Maggitt was told the Warriors would travel to Washington in 2011.

“I wasn’t thinking that far ahead,” Maggitt said, “but it came faster than I thought.”

Brown marveled at the area’s good weather.

“It’s a beautiful day; it’s hot but not humid,” he said.

Brown was suspended for last week’s season opener, but has had strong practices this week. He will start at weak-side linebacker. Leonard on the mend

Former UH linebacker Adam Leonard attended Thursday’s practice.

Leonard, who plays for the B.C. Lions of the Canadian Football League, is recovering from a torn ACL suffered in July.

As a high school senior in 2004, Leonard tore the ACL in his right knee. Following that surgery, he said, “My knee was black and blue, and really swollen, and painful.”

For the recent surgery on his left knee, he said, “my biggest incision was about an inch long. I’ve been impressed with the improvements (in medical technology).”

Leonard said he has another year remaining on his contract with the Lions, although, if healthy, he will pursue NFL tryouts.