Strong
indeed. Among other good traits.
Marcus
Strong's starting debut as a WSU cornerback came during a family crisis. He
made the most of it anyway.
By Dale
Grummert, Lewiston (Idaho) Tribune
SAN DIEGO
- His family tried to shield him from the news. But it was a long day before
kickoff, and Marcus Strong surely knew what was happening.
His
brother Justin, visiting Pullman to watch Strong's starting debut for the
Washington State football team, had been involved in a fight the previous night
and was being accused - wrongly, the family believed - of assault.
Strong
somehow did what football players are forever coached to do. It's what his
brother Justin - also a football player, for Montana, whose bye that week had
allowed him to make the jaunt to Pullman - wanted him to do: Shut out
distractions and play the game.
Strong
helped the Cougars stifle Colorado 24-0 on a rainy October evening in Pullman,
and he's been a starting cornerback ever since. The sophomore will make his
sixth start Thursday (6 p.m., FS1) when No. 21 Wazzu faces No. 18 Michigan
State in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, about 100 miles south of Strong's home
in Rialto, Calif.
"I
think he's gotten steadily better, and he had a really good practice
today," WSU coach Mike Leach said Monday after the team's second San Diego
workout. "He's naturally pretty fast and he's physical. Sometimes too
aggressive, but as he's gotten more disciplined he's played better and
better."
He's the
youngest of the eight athletic-minded children of Elvester Strong, a wine
deliverer and former world-class hurdler who served as a multi-sport coach for
the kids, and his wife Janis, a social worker who watchfully tended to their
academic development.
Although
the eldest five children are from previous relationships, the family avoids
terms like "stepson" and "stepdaughter" and places a
premium on close bonds with one another.
"Real
good family," Marcus Strong said recently in Pullman. "My dad came
from a real strict family, so he tried to raise us the same way. We can't sag
(in posture). We can't get ears pierced till we're 18. Can't get tattoos till
we're 18. You've got to follow house rules."
Marcus
spent some time in the shadow of two older brothers who played for Oregon
State. One was Victor Butler, who spent six seasons as a linebacker in the NFL
and this year helped the Toronto Argonauts win a Grey Cup in the Canadian
Football League.
The other
was Justin Strong, who played two seasons as a safety for the Beavers before
transferring to Montana, where early this season he was named FCS Defensive
Player of the Week after a three-interception performance in a win over
Portland State.
Heading
into his senior season at Carter High in Rialto, Marcus Strong hadn't drawn the
same level of interest from colleges that his brothers had. Maybe recruiters
figured he was a cinch to follow them to Oregon State. Maybe they wondered if
he was too small.
He told
his father he would give it one more season. If he didn't get offered, he would
quit football.
Not much
later, sure enough, Oregon State made an offer. In the ensuing weeks,
Washington State, San Jose State and Washington followed suit. Strong picked
the Cougars partly because of the family's long recruiting association with WSU
assistant coach Ken Wilson. For his part, Wilson said he felt confident at the
time that Marcus would gain size. He's now listed at 5-foot-9 and 177 pounds.
"His
brother was an NFL guy, and I knew their speed and maturity - they were all
really fast, and they all just love football," Wilson said Monday.
"Sometimes you have to have a bit of knowledge of the family."
That
includes the father, Elvester, who won a national junior-college title in the
400-meter hurdles in 1977 before watching his Olympic dreams fade with the U.S.
boycott of the 1980 Olympics. Speed is one of the first things one notices
about his sons.
"All
of them can run, but Marcus is the most naturally gifted in speed,"
Elvester Strong said. "I do believe he is going to run somewhere near 4.3
(for the 40-yard dash) or below when he finishes up."
Marcus
Strong thinks he has benefited from his brothers' experience.
"You
know things that other people don't know - you know what to expect, you know
what they went though," he said. "They tell what you're doing wrong,
what you can step up on. I text them every day for help. Me and my brother
Justin, we try to help each other, send each other tips."
Marcus
played mostly on special teams as a WSU true freshman last season, then
gradually earned a more prominent role on defense early this season. He was
preparing for his first start when Justin, then a senior safety at Montana,
capitalized on the Grizzlies' bye and trekked to Pullman to watch Marcus play.
He never
got a chance.
In the wee
hours of game day, he was arrested for alleged second-degree assault after a
multi-person fight at a Pullman house party. Also involved was one of the
Strong sisters, Scha'Lynn, a WSU criminology major who lives with Marcus.
Elvester Strong said her foiled efforts to come to someone's aid helped spur
Justin's involvement.
By the
time the dust had settled, a hammer thrower for the WSU track and field team
was hospitalized with a fractured skull, and Justin Strong was being held at
Whitman County Jail.
He was
released two days later, without being charged, and the case still appears to
be in limbo.
It wasn't
a good backdrop for Marcus Strong's starting debut. Given how close-knit the
Strong family is, news of the incident was undoubtedly a distraction as he
tried ready himself for the Colorado game.
Elvester
Strong is just happy he showed the discipline that he's long viewed as a family
trait.
"Marcus
is pretty strong up top - he's pretty solid," he said. "We tried to
keep it from him, but I think he already knew. He still went out there and had
a great game. Marcus is not easily distracted, but the bond with the sisters
and brothers (in this family) is second to none.
"It's
a situation that never should have happened."
………..
Grinch
still mum on Ohio State reports
By DALE GRUMMERT
Lewiston
Tribune
SAN DIEGO
- Washington State linebackers coach Ken Wilson wore a T-shirt for Christmas
Day practice Monday depicting "The Many Moods of Grinch."
It
featured six drawings of the famous holiday-stealing Dr. Seuss character, each
ostensibly expressing a particular mood: grumpy, content, excited, mean, foul
and nasty.
The joke
is this: Each drawing is exactly the same.
"It
kind of fit," a grinning Wilson said. "And it's Christmas Day."
The
T-shirt, of course, was a tribute to the Cougars' acclaimed young defensive
coordinator, Alex Grinch, who expresses a wide range of emotions with minimal
facial movement.
And these
days, he's also very good at staying mum.
Grinch
declined to speak to the media Monday amid continuing reports that he has
unofficially accepted an undisclosed position on the Ohio State staff. Unnamed
sources of 247Sports have speculated that he will be fitted into the 10th
assistant's job that the NCAA begins allowing next month, though such a move
would be puzzling for a coordinator slated to earn $625,000 next year.
It makes
more sense in light of Ohio State' national prominence in college football and
the strong Ohio roots of Grinch and his wife, Rebecca. The coach grew up in
Grove City, 9 miles south of Ohio State.
In any
case, the Cougars are loath to bid farewell to Grinch, who during a three-year
stay has rejuvenated the WSU defense in statistical and, more importantly,
intangible ways.
"Before
I got up here, I really didn't know coach Grinch," WSU sophomore
cornerback Marcus Strong said. "Me and coach Wilson had a really good
connection. But then I come up here and get a great coach like Grinch.
Super-smart."
The
Cougars (9-3) are in San Diego preparing for a Holiday Bowl matchup Thursday
night with Michigan State.
Grinch
indicated that will speak to reporters today, but it's not clear if he will
address the Ohio State reports.
……………..
Inevitable
friendship: Washington State nickels Hunter Dale and Kirkland Parker share
unique bond
UPDATED:
Tue., Dec. 26, 2017, 1:17 a.m.
Hunter
Dale walks off the field after a game with the Jefferson Parish All-Star
football team in Louisiana. (Michelle Dale/Courtesy)
By Theo
Lawson /// S-R of Spokane
PULLMAN –
They were both three-star defensive backs who arrived on Washington State’s
campus at practically the same time – each coming from pockets of the country
that might as well have been foreign territories compared to the outpost in
eastern Washington they’d be inhabiting for the next two to four years.
It was
sheer coincidence that Kirkland Parker and Hunter Dale both elected to play
college football in Pullman. But the friendship they forged was anything but
accidental.
Parker was
an athletically-gifted cornerback from Houston who’d spent the majority of his
teenage years on a basketball court, but still prospered in his two football
seasons at Texas’ Blinn College – a fertile breeding ground for D-I hopefuls
who slip through the cracks. Dale, a prized safety out of the New Orleans area,
was a well-known commodity on the recruiting trail who grabbed six offers from
the Pac-12, five from both the SEC and Big Ten, two from the ACC and another
from Notre Dame.
Bunched
into the same position meetings and grouped into the same DB drills, Parker and
Dale were practically joined at the hip as they plugged through the 14-day
stretch of the WSU football calendar spent annually at Lewiston’s Sacajawea
Junior High. They braved daily heat waves, returned to the Lewis-Clark State
dorms in the evening and traded horror stories from the two-week sweatfest
known as fall camp.
One
particular conversation led the teammates to an interesting discovery: they were
both raised in the state – native Louisianans who’d actually grown up within 30
minutes of one another. Parker lists Houston as his hometown, but he spent a
chunk of his childhood in New Orleans. Dale was bred in the nearby suburb of
Harahan.
“That’s always
cool because you have somebody who knows about back home and knows the things
that you like, the food that you like,” Dale said, “so we were kind of
interested in the same things and hanging out every day.”
They
continued to trade notes about their upbringings. It got more bizarre when a
common figure came up: Tristan St. Cyr. Dale’s stepbrother. Parker’s cousin.
After
skimming through the family tree the WSU DBs managed to connect a few more
dots. Dale’s mother had been married to Parker’s uncle. The Cougar teammates
weren’t related through blood, but this connection established they were, at
one point, step cousins through marriage – and not until Parker and Dale
arrived in Pullman did either have any clue.
“I never
met (Hunter), but later on I found out when I committed here because Tristan
texted me and told me, ‘You’re going to be there with my brother,’” Parker
said. “I was like, ‘You have a brother?’ I was like, ‘Who?’ He was like,
‘Hunter.’ And that was him.”
And it’s
entirely possible the first meeting between Parker and Dale was not at a team
function in Pullman, but instead at a family function in Louisiana more than a
decade earlier.
“Like the
wedding,” Dale said. “We were probably both there, but I didn’t even see
Kirkland, probably or talked to him, I don’t even remember.”
Either
way, it seemed to bring the teammates closer.
When the
Cougars returned to Pullman from fall camp, Parker, unable to move into his
apartment, got his hands on a mattress and spent two weeks sleeping on Dale’s
floor. It was tight quarters inside a room designed for only one and Dale was
grateful to “have somebody to talk to every night.”
Kirkland
Parker (second to left) and Hunter Dale (center) pose with teammates as the
Washington State football team prepares to travel to the Holiday Bowl in San
Diego. (Kirkland Parker/Twitter)
Kirkland
Parker (second to left) and Hunter Dale (center) pose with teammates as the
Washington State football team prepares to travel to the Holiday Bowl in San
Diego. (Kirkland Parker/Twitter)
Three
seasons later, Parker and Dale have ditched their original roles on the field
to become WSU’s top two options at the hybrid nickelback position. A
hotly-contested battle to replace Parker Henry persisted into the final week of
August, until Dale finally pulled away to earn the starting gig.
Said Dale
in August: “It’s not one of those competitions where, I’m not going to talk to
him, I hope he does bad. Like when he’s running out there, I’m like ‘All right
Kirk, technique, stay low,’ and we give each other a dap. We have a little
thing where we hit the hand on the back twice when we come onto the field.”
As young
adults managing the difficult balance between student and athlete, Dale and
Parker have surely come across a bad day or two during their time on the
Palouse.
But the
WSU nickels were also young boys in New Orleans during the mid-2000’s, so their
ability to distinguish between a rough patch and true misfortune is probably
stronger than most.
Hurricane
Katrina arrived on the doorstep of the Gulf Coast on Aug. 23, 2005. The
whipping windstorms and rainfall didn’t penetrate New Orleans until Aug. 29,
but once Katrina hit, it acted quickly, drowning the vibrant metropolis and
many of its residents under a sea of water.
The storm
washed Parker’s family out of the city for good. Dale’s family was temporarily
displaced.
“When the
levees broke, everything just hit the fan, so I just had to get out of there,”
Parker said. “We were like just leaving. … Hurricane’s going on, hurricane’s
going on, then as soon as the levees broke, we left.”
Parker was
just 11 years old when Katrina swept through and wiped out the uptown New
Orleans home he’d grown up in.
Eula
Parker transported her family to Atlanta, where Kirkland’s had been living.
They spent one month in a shelter before Kirkland’s father opened his McDonald,
Georgia, home to the family. Days after the hurricane subsided, the Parkers
returned to New Orleans with the hope of salvaging bits and pieces of their old
life. The wreckage left next to nothing. Anything that was still standing in
the two-bedroom home was covered in fungus.
“Just
trying to get our stuff and literally just nothing being there and the house
being destroyed and mold everywhere,” he said. “And knowing you can’t get
anything you want back. … Like, ‘I want this, I’m going to go back and get
this,’ and knowing that you go back and like holy crap, nothing’s there.”
Dale and
his mother Michelle, had planned to take refuge with a family member in Destin,
Florida, but they made it as far as Hattiesburg, Mississippi, before running
out of gas. After bunking up in their car the first night, they changed their
plans and returned to Louisiana to stay with Dale’s great grandmother in
Opelousas. More than a dozen other extended family members had also evacuated
there.
“You just
helped out whoever you could when they came through,” Michelle Dale said. “…
There was so many people in there, it was like, we cooked breakfast, we cleaned
up breakfast, everybody would eat. By the time breakfast was over, that was
cleaned up, it was time to start cooking lunch.”
“It was
just a weird time,” Hunter said.
His
grandfather, a police chief in Harahan, told stories of the looting that took
place in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. Dale’s aunt, a Harahan
nurse, remembers angered civilians firing bullets into the hospital she was working
at.
Alligators
floated through the flooded roadways, Dale recalled, and it was hard to shake
the image of houses stacked on top of others houses – in some cases with full
automobiles puncturing either side.
“At that
time I had a baseball coach and his car was in his living room when he came
back,” Dale said. “The water level at this time – I had to be 10 or 12 (feet)
or something in that range – and the water level was 8 feet. I was about 4-5 at
the time. It was crazy. I took pictures next to the water. It was completely
over me.
“And then
on the houses they had X’s. At the top of the X was the date, the left of the X
was how many people were dead in the house, the right of the X was how many
people were living. But a lot of houses you passed had one or two on the left
side and that was really sad. Could you imagine just not being able to get
through your roof and just drowning?”
Parker’s
family spent two years in Georgia before moving to Houston as Kirkland was
entering the seventh grade. Not long after the move, the teenage boy with an
athletic build, long frame and accurate jumper was hoisting shots at a local
park when he was approached by a middle-aged man.
Tom Leahy,
the coach of a local AAU basketball team, saw someone who had the potential to
be an elite combo guard and offered Parker an opportunity to join his traveling
squad.
On the AAU
circuit, Parker jousted with Texas’ best hoopers and spent one summer playing
alongside Justise Winslow, currently of the Miami Heat, and Kelly Oubre of the
Washington Wizards. He played for the Kingwood Park varsity squad from his
sophomore year on and started to draw interest from college recruiters as a
junior. A handful of schools in the south, including Tulane, had caught wind of
Parker’s talents. Gonzaga’s Mark Few had the Kingwood Park guard on his radar.
Washington
State defensive back Kirkland Parker (10) runs onto the field during senior day
activities before an NCAA college football game against Stanford in Pullman,
Wash., Saturday, Nov. 4, 2017. (Young Kwak / AP)
Washington
State defensive back Kirkland Parker (10) runs onto the field during senior day
activities before an NCAA college football game against Stanford in Pullman,
Wash., Saturday, Nov. 4, 2017. (Young Kwak / AP)
But it’s
possible that Parker’s allegiance to a burgeoning basketball career deterred
him from getting a head start on the sport that would eventually foot the bill
for his college education.
“9-12 was
straight basketball,” Parker explained.
More or
less. He played football briefly as a high school fresman and joined the team
again for his senior season, but Parker wasn’t getting enough bites from
college recruiters to pursue an immediate career playing either sport.
“I was
kind of in a rut, like what am I going to do now?” Parker said.
One option
was to join a few Kingwood buddies at Blinn College and join the Buccaneers’
heralded football program as a walk-on. Blinn’s not a bad place to be for high
school stars who don’t take a direct route to the FBS and the community college
in Brenham, Texas, groomed players like Cam Newton and Dede Westbrook before
both wound up in the NFL.
Blinn’s
defensive backs coach, Thomas Rocco, suggested Parker show up to a walk-on
tryout. The talent was evident, so even when Parker broke his finger on the
final day of the spring tryout, he was promised a spot on the roster in the
fall.
After
using a redshirt in 2014, Parker emerged as a shut-down DB for Blinn’s 2014
team, recording 17 tackles, three pass breakups, two interceptions, one blocked
punt, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery.
Parker’s
blend of physicality and agility were a perfect match for the “Speed D” Alex
Grinch was installing at WSU. Despite offers from Purdue, Indiana and others,
he signed his letter of intent to join the Cougars on June 17, 2015.
And while
basketball made a strong push through Parker’s teenage years, it became
abundantly clear his calling was on the football field.
“You have
to have an edge to you, you have to have a motor, grit,” Parker said. “And I
just liked that part.”
To trace
the roots of Dale’s football career, one would have to go back 17 years to the
Pop Warner fields of southeastern Louisiana. You wouldn’t have found the future
Division I DB at any of the skill positions – Dale was in the trenches.
He has a
sharp memory and it’s not lost on him that his first football coach opted to
place his sons at quarterback and running back, demoting Dale to offensive
guard and defensive tackle.
“Somebody
would break a run and I would be the one chasing them down all the way across
the field,” he said, “outrunning the DBs and stuff.”
Dale is
also inclined to share this highlight from his early football career: when he
turned 7 years old, he moved to Harahan, became a running back “and we went
undefeated … won a little championship … (I) got the MVP that year.”
Hunter
Dale walks off the field after a game with the Jefferson Parish All-Star
football team in Louisiana. (Michelle Dale/Courtesy)
Hunter
Dale walks off the field after a game with the Jefferson Parish All-Star
football team in Louisiana. (Michelle Dale/Courtesy)
Similar to
Parker, Dale was a multi-sport athlete who probably could’ve managed a decent
collegiate career on the baseball diamond had he committed to his second love.
Dale was a
multi-faceted utility player who took John Curtis High to the Louisiana 3A
state title as a junior, primarily playing in the outfield – the position with
perhaps the most parallels to Dale’s role on the football field. On the
baseball diamond, Dale was a savvy outfielder who could cover ground as well as
anyone in the region. On the gridiron, he was a physical, not-to-be-tested
safety who accumulated 96 tackles and 11 interceptions between his junior and
senior seasons. The Patriots won the school’s 26th state championship in 2013
with Dale starring in the defensive secondary.
The two
sports competed for Dale’s time most of his life – and they often overlapped.
“We would
go to the carwash and lay out his baseball pants and the muddy football pants
and spray them with the pressure-washer,” Michelle Dale said, “to get all the
red mud and dirt out before I put it into his washing machine.”
But
Hunter, the son of a former Southern University football player, the grandson
of an ex-LSU star and the godson of a one-time Notre Dame tight end who logged
seven seasons in the NFL, always seemed destined to land on the gridiron.
Football’s
the family trade. No exaggeration.
A long
line of current and former NFL stars have gone through Sonic Boom, the speed
conditioning and strength training academy that Dale’s father, Wyatt Harris,
operates in Jefferson, Louisiana.
Harris was
training Tracy Porter, Robert Meachem and Marques Colston of the New Orleans
Saints the year they lifted the spirits of a downtrodden city by winning Super
Bowl XLIV. Alabama running back Mark Ingram trained Sonic Boom before he lifted
the Heisman Trophy. Odell Beckham Jr. hone his route-running and agility with
the help of Dale’s father.
Harris
always invited his son to the training sessions.
“He had me
just shadowing Odell Beckham and Marques Colston,” Dale said. “It made me play
really fast. And then just very competitive out there.
“So when
they would run, I would run. When they would do footwork, I would do footwork
with them. He would hold me to their standards, too, so I would really have to
get my stuff going.”
Then it’s
no surprise that Dale transformed into one of the state’s highly-touted
recruits – a safety who’d be able make just about any program better with his
savvy and intellect.
Nebraska
got an early commitment from Dale, perhaps because it offered him the rare
opportunity to wear a Cornhusker football jersey in the fall and a baseball
jersey in the spring. Dale was prepared to sign, but Nebraska fired coach Bo
Pelini on Dec. 1, 2014. He then pledged to Florida, but Will Muschamp lost his
job before signing day.
Dale, who
listed 24 college offers according to 247Sports, didn’t lack options, but time
wasn’t on his side.
Missouri
was one of those 24 and Dale had taken notice of the Tigers’ sudden uprise in
the SEC – one that was fueled by dominant performances on the defensive side of
the ball. And Dale admired the work of Mizzou’s safeties coach – someone he’d
crossed paths with on the recruiting trail.
“I could
just see the way their players run, playing around, how hard they were
playing,” Dale said. “And that’s a guy I would love to play for. Because my dad
always told me, ‘You should go play for a man that’s going to shape you into a
man and not just a football player.’”
But upon
phoning Missouri’s coaching office, Dale learned that Alex Grinch had left to
become the defensive coordinator at WSU. So another phone call followed – this
one to the football operations building in Pullman. Grinch was still interested
in Dale and he signed with the Cougars on March 2, 2015.
“Everything
happens for a reason,” Dale said.
Three
months later, Parker faxed in his letter of intent.
___
Dale
grasped WSU’s starting nickel job not long before the Cougars opened the season
and Montana State and hasn’t let go, recording 44 tackles, eight
tackles-for-loss, three sacks, one interception, three pass breakups, three QB
hurries and one forced fumble.
“I think
that his confidence is growing, I think he’s played well all year,” position
coach Roy Manning said in late October. “The more plays he makes, the more
confident he is about making those plays. But at the same token, he’s not doing
too much.”
WSU
coaches challenged Dale to lose 20 pounds during the offseason. Rather than
returning home to New Orleans last summer, he stayed in Pullman so he could go
through the team’s offseason conditioning program. He tweaked his diet – more
healthy proteins, fibers and greens, less sugars and fats – and convinced his
mom to purchase a portable sauna that would help him reach his target of 190
pounds. Dale came in at 189 on weigh-in day.
“It’s
competition,” Michelle said, “and he knew he had to put in the work.”
Washington
State safety Hunter Dale walks on the sideline late in the second half of the
team's NCAA college football game against Washington, Saturday, Nov. 25, 2017,
in Seattle. Washington won 41-14. (Ted S. Warren / AP)
Washington
State safety Hunter Dale walks on the sideline late in the second half of the
team's NCAA college football game against Washington, Saturday, Nov. 25, 2017,
in Seattle. Washington won 41-14. (Ted S. Warren / AP)
Given the
neck-and-neck nature of their position battle during camp, it isn’t all that
naïve to think Parker could’ve also thrived as WSU’s starting nickel. He’s
spelled Dale in 10 of 12 games this year and enters Thursday’s Holiday Bowl –
Parker’s collegiate swan song – with nine tackles and one PBU.
Even
though Dale’s been able to stake his name to the top spot on the depth chart,
competition between the Cougar nickels persists.
“We
connect, we play well together, we just pick each other up,” Parker said.
“That’s my dude, we just go, go, go. Keep each other going, I make a mistake,
he makes a mistake, we just try to lift each other up and just keep it going.”
………………
Last time
Cougs-Spartans met: Fireworks and a far different era
Kirk
Gibson starred at MSU while 150-pound Brian Kelly marveled at beating Mike
Levenseller absorbed
By Greg
Witter – Cougfan
IN THE
MODERN age of college football, the mere notion is preposterous: Having your
team open the season on the road four straight weeks against three Power 5
opponents and perennial conference bully
USC.
But in
1977, that’s exactly what awaited the Washington State Cougars …
Sept. 10 - at No. 15 Nebraska
Sept. 17 - at Michigan State
Sept. 24 - at Kansas
Sept. 30 - at No. 2 USC
That's not
a schedule. It's a crucible. And no one really thought it was that big a deal.
In those
days, when TV revenue was almost nonexistent and the number of fans in the
stands determined the bottom line, treks to the Midwest were pretty routine for
the Cougs at the start of a season.
Getting
big pays days from schools who played in large stadiums was how WSU balanced
the athletic department budget. More times than not, the cash came at the
expense of a win.
Not in
1977, however.
WSU
stunned 15th-ranked Nebraska in the opener, 19-10, and Cornhuskers fans gave
the Cougs a standing ovation. Then it was on to East Lansing to play a Michigan
State team that would lose only one game in the Big Ten that season.
Until the
Cougars and Spartans square off this Thursday in the Holiday Bowl, that 1977
nail biter — a 23-21 come-from-behind WSU victory — marks the last time the two
well-regarded Land Grants faced each other.
"I
just remember our defense was flying around like crazy," said Cougar
safety Bob Gregor, who would later spend five seasons in the NFL. "We were
hyped coming off the win at Nebraska. We had confidence."
The Cougs
were so hyped, in fact, that Gregor remembers fellow safety Mark Patterson
delivering a hit on a Spartan receiver that ranks among the most ferocious,
college or pro, he's ever seen. "He hit him so hard, he knocked the guy
out. You could actually hear the guy snoring while he was being tended to. That
was incredible."
The hits
weren't all one-side.
“One thing
I remember about that game was Levy (Cougar receiver Mike Levenseller) coming
into the huddle and asking if I was effing trying to kill him,” remembers
Cougar quarterbacking legend Jack Thompson, who had fired a few passes high,
resulting in Levenseller taking nasty shots to the ribs.
“I said,
‘So you’re saying you don’t want me to throw to you anymore?’” Thompson added
with a chuckle.
Levenseller
also remembers the moment vividly, though somewhat differently.
“Jack was
hanging me out to dry. I got a hip pointer off one of those. I came back into
the game and we had that little discussion — which was unusual for us — and I
said quit throwing those high passes and he said, ‘Quit running those short
routes',” Levenseller laughed.
Five-foot-nine,
150-pound Brian Kelly caught both of Thompson’s two TD passes that day and
later became a record setter and hall of famer in the Canadian Football League.
He recalls
running into the end zone retaining wall on one of those scoring grabs, a post
corner, but says that blow was nothing compared to Levenseller.
“He took a
beating like no guy I’ve ever seen,” Kelly said. “He was always hitting people
or getting hit."
Harry
Missildine of The Spokesman-Review was at his pithy best writing about the
dramatic finish in the next day’s paper:
Brilliantly
piloted by Jack ‘Touchdown’ Thompson on fourth quarter drives of 75 and 80
yards, Washington State overcame self-inflicted adversity and Michigan State
23-21.
Thompson
passed for 364 yards and two touchdowns, both caught by red-haired phantom
Brian Kelly … Thompson and his amazing receivers connected on 21 of 30 pass
attempts for an amazing percentage of .700 as the Cougars punched out 535 yards
of total offense.
Two notes
for the record:
In the days before the dink-and-dunk, when
most receivers and backs averaged double-digit yardage in the air game, a 70
percent accuracy rate was unheard of.
Missildine’s regular moniker for Thompson —
“The Throwin’ Samoan” — was a tad more creative than “Touchdown” and had more
legs too.
Thompson,
a fourth-year junior would go on to set the NCAA career record for passing
yards, was named Pac-8 Offensive Player of the Week for the second straight
week and the Cougs rose to No. 15 in the AP Top 20.
Kelly
remembers Spartan defensive backs being no match for the Cougar air game. “We
were a passing school and the Midwest hadn’t caught up yet to that,” he said.
“Their secondary wasn’t ready for it.”
Despite
the come-from-behind nature of the victory -- WSU scored the winning TD with 4
minutes left in the game -- both Kelly and Levenseller remember the Cougars
clearly being the better team. Take out turnovers and "it was really
pretty easy," said Kelly.
MICHIGAN
STATE HAD A STRAPPING GUY at receiver named Kirk Gibson — the same guy who
would go on to World Series fame.
“He was a
helluva player,” said Levenseller, who played three NFL and two CFL seasons
before embarking on a long coaching career. “We wound up having the same agent
and would talk once in awhile about playing against each other that day.”
Levenseller
also recalls standout Cougar cornerback Mark Patterson going out in front of
Spartan Stadium before the game and selling his two comp tickets. “You can’t do
that anymore,” he said. Gregor said he also recalls a freshman going out to do
the same thing -- but fully dressed in his game uniform!
THE
COUGARS WERE COACHED BY Warren Powers, a former Oakland Raiders Super Bowl
starter who was in his first and only year at WSU after six seasons as an
assistant at Nebraska. He left WSU for Missouri at season's end and his
offensive coordinator at WSU, Jim Walden, was elevated to head coach by Cougar
AD Sam Jankovich. Walden put an end to the coaching carousel in Cougarville by
staying through 1986. From 1975-78, the Cougars had four head coaches in four
years: Jim Sweeney, Jackie Sherrill,
Powers and Walden.
WHERE ARE
THEY NOW? Thompson is a principal in Cherry
Creek Mortgage in Seattle; Kelly works in real estate leasing in Minneapolis;
Gregor in retired and living in the Seattle suburb of Redmond; and Levenseller
is retired and living in Pullman. Thompson and Levenseller both had sons who
played for the Cougs. In addition, Levenseller's daughter Jordan was standout
WSU volleyball player. And Gregor's two sons are Cougs -- one a graduate and
one a current student.
NOTABLE:
WSU finished the season 6-5 -- one win
short of a berth in the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl. That one extra win was widely
viewed as stolen from the Cougars when a last-second field goal by Paul Watson
at Kansas was called no good despite announcers, players on both sides of the
field and fans in the end zone seeing it the other way.
All four of the Cougars' starting defensive
backs in 1977 -- Patterson, Ken Greene and Don Schwartz in 1978 and Gregor in
1980 -- were NFL draft picks. Greene went in the first round to the Cardinals.
Three members of the '77 team (Levenseller,
Greene and George Yarno) became assistant coaches at WSU. Levenseller was the
dean, serving under three head coaches over 20 seasons. In his 2011 book, 596
Switch, Ryan Leaf devoted an entire chapter to the legend of Levenseller.
Yarno, who spent 10 seasons in the NFL and two in the USFL, coached at WSU from
1991-94 under Mike Price and from 2003-07 under Bill Doba. He passed away a
year ago.
Related story: Why Jack Thompson is the
greatest Cougar of all time.
…………………………………….
Cole
Madison: We’ve turned it into what we want it to be
'You get
emotional thinking about it'
By Dylan
Haugh - Cougfan
PULLMAN –
It’s getting close now, and Cole Madison knows it. Washington State’s seniors
will play their last game in a Cougar uniform on Thursday -- a whole lot of
‘last times’ the seniors do this or that are coming at an increasing pace.
Shortly before the Cougs left for San Diego, we asked Madison about the
beginning and end of his five years at WSU.
The Cougs’
starting right tackle can be forgiven for not wanting to think too much about
five years’ worth of crimson experiences coming to a close.
“Honestly,
it really hasn’t hit me yet," said Madison (6-5, 314). "Me and a
couple of the guys were talking about the other day; 'Hey man, this is my last
week in Pullman with you guys.’ You've just got to take advantage of the
opportunity -- want to leave this team with a W, get to 10 wins, tie the record
for the most wins in WSU history for a team.
"You
get emotional thinking about it, now that I'm sitting here talking about
it."
MADISON AS
A true freshman out of Burien was listed at 6-5, 265 pounds on the 2013 WSU
roster. He was probably closer to
245.
A tight
end at Kennedy High, his lone Pac-12 offer came from WSU where Mike Leach and
Co. saw possibly a very big receiving target or, more likely, a prototypical
Air Raid offensive lineman who was agile and with great feet, and had room to
pack on the bulk.
Five years
later, Madison has started 46 games headed into Thursday -- and 38 in a row --
at right tackle.
He's also
been the most consistent offensive lineman this season, says OL coach Clay McGuire. All of his fellow seniors, Madison said, have
stepped up to get the Cougs where they are headed into one final rodeo.
“We came
here and had the goal to change the program around and I think as a senior
class we did that and I think that’s our
legacy,” Madison said. “Get the younger guys to have that same mentality and
keep it going throughout the years and passing it along.”
Madison
and the No. 18 Cougs will post 10 wins for the first time since 2003, and the
first time in the Mike Leach era, if they beat No. 16 Michigan State in the
Holiday Bowl on Thursday (6 pm, Fox Sports 1).
Madison
said the Cougars, who have won 9, 8 and 9 wins the past three seasons along
with the third-most Pac-12 wins over that span with 22, have raised the bar
each of the past three years.
“There’s
been some downs but more highs in my opinion,” said Madison. “I just think this senior class, this whole
team, has really come together the last few years and really bought into the
program. We’ve turned it into what we want it to be."
WITH WSU
WELCOMING 19 new Cougars last week in the early signing period, Madison smiled
when talking about his "bittersweet" first season out on the Palouse.
“That
transition to college football you go from being the big fish in a little pond,
to the little fish in a big pond," Madison said. "You've just got to earn that spot. And once you get that spot, it’s the most
satisfying thing in the world."
Asked what
advice he would have for the incoming freshmen, particularly the offensive linemen,
Madison kept coming back to one word: trust.
“The
biggest thing I’d tell them is trust the process," said Madison.
"There’s things that when I was younger I didn’t want to do: putting on
all that weight was hard. But I had to
do it -- look where it's put me now.
"Trust
the coaches, they know what they're doing."
As for
what will be first and foremost on Madison’s mind come Thursday?
"We've
got to just seize the moment. Take it.”
NOTABLE
NOTE:
Madison
and Luke Falk have been selected to play in the Senior Bowl on Jan. 27.
////////////////////
Link below
to story about former WSU football assistant coach, David Yost
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