MONDAY
MORNING QUARTERBACK: The obvious and subtle dividends of continuity
By DALE
GRUMMERT of the Lewiston Tribune Nov 19, 2018
PULLMAN -
Before facing Washington State in a season opener in September, the Wyoming
Cowboys' veteran coach, Craig Bohl, delivered a brief scouting report on the
Cougars that began with this: "I think their (good) team has transitioned
into a really good program."
I know it
sounds bland, but 12 weeks later it also sounds prescient. Even at the time,
Bohl uttered this seeming bit of coachspeak with a knowing precision that made
it interesting.
During the
past few decades, Washington State has produced numerous good teams, but
they've tended to be isolated and relatively unsurprising. You could see them
coming by standing on a rock on Steptoe Butte.
The Cougs
needed two things to be good in those days. First, a talented quarterback who'd
been honing his craft in Pullman for three years or so. Second, a bunch of
seniors who were sick of losing and frequently let their teammates know about
it.
This successful
season is different. It feels increasingly different with every new statement
the Cougars make, and they raised their message to the level of a proclamation
Saturday night in their 69-28 evisceration of Arizona.
They're
getting absolutely no help from the would-be spoilers of the College Football
Playoff race, but they announced their 10-1 record and their outlandish bid for
the Heisman Trophy so emphatically on a frigid evening in Pullman that they
climbed a spot Sunday to No. 7 in the Associated Press poll anyway.
Only the
card-carrying Candides of their fan base saw this coming. Heading into that
opener three months ago at Laramie, Wyo., the two traditional requisites for a
good Wazzu team weren't even close to being in place. The quarterback had been
in Pullman three months, not three years. The team's senior class was
persuasive but not especially large. At this point, the starting lineup
includes as many sophomores (eight) as seniors.
But the
Cougars have a seventh-year coach, and this is only the sixth time in history
they've been able to say that. The last time, Mike Price hammered away for
years until he built the sort of program that could stack one successful season
upon another. The result was the Cougars' heady three-year period early this
century, before Price's departure and a lull in administrative foresight
brought the momentum to a halt.
Now it's
back. Whatever else you might say about Mike Leach, he preaches consistency in
a way that either drives you crazy or helps you become consistent.
The most
obvious results of this continuity are depth and quality execution. At several
positions, the Coug understudies are nearly as good as the starters, and they
all know what they're trying to accomplish. They've got so many gifted
receivers that one of them, a four-star recruit buried on the depth chart,
recently quit the team to look for less-green pastures.
But there
appears to be another aspect to this continuity. It's the sort of gradual
psychic self-improvement that Bill Murray, after endless attempts, benefits
from in "Groundhog Day" - an extended karmic quest to master one's
demons and get one's act together.
Three
weeks ago, the Cougars gutted out a win over a California team that had
clobbered them last year. The following week, they shrugged off difficult
weather conditions and won at Boulder, Colo., for the first time in Leach's
career. In this most recent example, they decisively avenged a disheartening
loss last year to Arizona and its gifted dual-threat quarterback.Their 55 first-half
points were their most for a half since their Rose Bowl season of 1997.
In short,
they're looking like a good program and not just a good team.
Fresh
blood is helping the Cougars in a way it couldn't help Bill Murray.
Specifically, quarterback Gardner Minshew and his Heisman-worthy performances
are revitalizing Leach's Air Raid offense with his mobility, sure instincts and
charismatic leadership. And his counterpart on the defense, sixth-year
linebacker Peyton Pelluer, has returned from an injury-wrecked 2017 season to
play the best football of his distinguished career.
But
Minshew and Pelluer have a peculiar thing in common: Each had a chance to play
this year for juggernaut Alabama. They chose not to. The Cougars - as a team
and as a program - can take some credit for that.
::::::::::::::::
UW and WSU
team up to tout college affordability
By Chad
Sokol
Mon., Nov.
19, 2018 Spokane S-R
A joint
marketing campaign by Washington State University and the University of
Washington begins just ahead of this year’s Apple Cup to take advantage of the
attention that comes with the Cougars-Huskies football rivalry. (WSU/UW)
It’s
easier than you might think to afford a quality college education in Washington
state.
At least
that’s the theme of a joint marketing campaign by Washington State University
and the University of Washington.
In a
conference call, WSU President Kirk Schulz and UW President Ana Mari Cauce said
they are launching an initiative called “Yes, It’s Possible” to dispel the myth
that students must incur massive amounts of debt to earn their degrees.
“Our state
is second in the country in terms of the amount of dollars that they put into
student financial aid,” Cauce said. “Almost half of students graduate and get a
four-year degree without any known debt.”
The
campaign begins just ahead of this year’s Apple Cup to take advantage of the
attention that comes with the Cougars-Huskies football rivalry.
A new
website, PossibleWA.org, features stories of students who found success despite
financial challenges, as well as financial aid information for all of the
state’s public universities, community colleges and technical schools.
Cauce and
Schulz said many potential students focus on the sticker price of tuition
without realizing the range of loans, grants and scholarships available to
them.
“Too often
people self-select out and go, ‘Well, I’m sure it wouldn’t happen,’ or ‘I’m
sure I can’t afford it,’ ” Schulz said.
Cauce
added, “We know that they qualify for financial aid, but they don’t know that.”
In
Washington, about 48 percent of students at public four-year universities
graduate with no known debt, Cauce said. For the rest, the average amount of
debt is about $24,000 – less than the average in many other states, she said.
“Basically,
it’s about the cost of an economy car,” she said. “And when you look at the
college premium, which is about $1 million over a lifetime, this is a great
investment.”
In
addition to earning more, college graduates tend to be healthier and more
civically engaged, Cauce said. The notion that college degrees have plummeted
in value, she said, is “just not true.”
“We’re all
in favor of multiple pathways to success, and college may not be right for
everybody, but we don’t want them to rule it out based on sticker price,” she
said. “And we also want them to know that college is a really great pathway to
social mobility for students.”
According
to Washington’s Council of Presidents – which includes the leaders of the
state’s six baccalaureate-granting schools – only New Jersey puts more state
money per student into need-based grant programs. Still, Washington’s State
Need Grant has routinely run out of money before all qualifying students
receive aid.
According
to a December 2017 report by the Washington attorney general’s office, the
number of student loan borrowers in the state has likely surpassed 800,000
since the latest available count in 2012. Another report by the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau found that student loan debt from Washington
borrowers totaled $24.4 billion at the end of 2016.
Nationwide,
borrowers owe more than $1.5 trillion in student loans, making student debt the
second-largest consumer debt segment in the country after mortgages, according
to the Federal Reserve data. Bloomberg recently reported that delinquency rates
on student loans are near all-time highs.
Washington’s
Council of Presidents says the three-year student-loan default rate for
graduates of the state’s four-year universities is 4.7 percent, while the
national average is 11.5 percent.
The “Yes,
It’s Possible” campaign is expected to run for several months with radio and
online ads throughout the state.
::::::::::::
Hilltop
Inn in Pullman now a Coast Hotel
From Pullman Radio News
The
Hilltop Inn in Pullman is now a Coast Hotel. The company recently announced its
new partnership with local owners Ron and Barb Wachter. The Wachters bought the
Hilltop Motel & Restaurant on Sunnyside Hill in 1979. They built a new 59
room hotel in 1995 and then constructed a 54 room addition 5 years ago. The
property is now called Coast Hilltop Inn. Coast Hotels has 10 other properties
on the West coast along with Hawaii and Alaska.
::::::::::::
WSU Women's
Basketball Signs Three For 2019-20; they’re from New Zealand, Rwanda and
Seattle
11/19/2018
from WSU Sports Info
PULLMAN,
Wash. - In her first official signing day as head coach of Washington State
women's basketball, Kamie Ethridge made the most of her time on the recruiting
trail by announcing the signings of three players to NCAA National Letters of
Intent. Putting on the Crimson and Gray in 2019 for the Cougars are: Leah Mafua
(Wellington, New Zealand), Bella Murekatete (Ngoma Huye, Rwanda), and Grace
Sarver (Seattle, Wash.).
"It
is with great excitement that I get to announce our first signing class at
Washington State," said Ethridge. "My staff and I wanted to sign
versatile, talented, positive energy and high-IQ players. We did that with the
signing of Grace, Bella and Leah. We filled some needs in our program by
signing a big strong athletic post in Bella, a versatile (positionless) guard
in Leah and a long attacking point guard in Grace. Our fans will notice their
talent, size and potential but more importantly they exhibit the
characteristics we want in our program. Some of those characteristics are
toughness, passion, grit and selflessness. This signing class chose Washington
State because they believe in this coaching staff and team, felt 'at home' on
this WSU campus and love the die-hard Coug community in Pullman. These three
players will make a big impact on our program over the years to come!"
Leah Mafua
| 5-10 | Guard/Forward
Coming to
Pullman from New Zealand, Mafua brings with her a wealth of international
basketball experience having played for her home country in tournaments around
the world. Most recently, Mafua played in the 2018 FIBA U18 Asian
Championships, facing off against the likes of current Coug, Ula Motuga and
Australia, as well as the rest of the best the Asian contingent had to offer.
In five games, Mafua average 10 points, five rebounds, three assists and 1.5
steals per game in just over 21 minutes per game. Facing off against Motuga in
the first knockout round, Mafua put up 13 points as New Zealand fell just short
of the semifinals. On the high school level, Mafua led Hutt Valley to the Wellington
title last season while finishing as the national runner-up. In the finals, she
came up with 22 points and earned a spot on the tournament team at Nationals.
Ethridge
on Mafua - "Leah is a strong, tough and versatile 1-4 talent. She has the
ability to shoot the three but, also has the size, strength, ball handling
skills and passing abilities to make plays at the rim. She will be able to play
and guard multiple positions.You will see in Leah determination, loyalty and a
commitment to impacting her team and program."
Bella
Murekatete | 6-5 | Center
An
intimidating presence in the paint, Murekatete has spent the last three years
playing high school basketball at Genesis Prep Academy in Post Falls, Idaho.
While still learning the game, Murekatete has established herself as one of the
most athletic and skilled centers in the country and on the international
scene. As a junior, Murekatete led the Jags to a runner-up finish at the DII
state championship while averaging 28.7 points at the state tournament
including a 25 point, 30 rebound, seven block effort in the finals. For the
season, Murekatete averaged 20.6 points and 18.6 rebounds per game en route to
first team all-state honors. On the international level, Murekatete led
Rwanda's U-18 women basketball team to a fourth place finish at the FIBA U18
Women's African Championships. The big center was dominant, earning a spot on
the All-Star Five team at the end of the tournament as the tournament's best
rebounder. In all, Murekatete averaged 16.8 points and 13.7 rebounds in six
games for Rwanda. She first made her debut for Rwanda at 15 when she averaged
14 rebounds per game at the FIBA U16 Women's African Championships.
Ethridge
on Murekatete - "With the graduation of Maria Kostourkova, we knew we needed
to sign a BIG. We identified Bella early and saw a real talent. Bella has size,
athleticism, length, good hands and a world of potential. Bella also brings a
playful and fun spirit to the team along with a bit of a 'mean streak' (which
all great post players have). Our system is at its best when we have a dominant
back to the basket post player. We envision Bella to fill that role."
Grace
Sarver | 5-8 | Guard
Coming
across the state from Seattle, Sarver will enter WSU after graduating from West
Seattle HS next spring. The lockdown defender has picked up three-straight
Seattle Times First Team awards as well as an AP All-State honorable mention
award prior to heading into her senior season where she looks to lead her team
to its first state title. As a junior, Sarver led the Wildcats to a third-place
finish in the Washington State Championships, the best finish in West Seattle
history. In addition, the Wildcats grabbed their third-straight District
championship with Sarver, a three-time All-Metro League honoree, in the lineup.
In addition to her skills on the basketball court, Sarver played one year of
soccer, ran two years of track, and just finished her third year of volleyball.
Ethridge
on Sarver - "A priority of our program is to recruit the state of Washington
and the Pacific Northwest. I am thrilled to introduce Grace as our first
recruit from the state of Washington. Grace is a 'ball of energy'. She plays
and competes so hard that it rubs off on her teammates. She is a player (and
teammate) that will push herself (and others) to be their very best. Her skill
set (mainly her attacking style) will fit perfectly with our spread
offense."
::::::::::
Washington
State University Bread Lab’s first culinary director connecting chefs, farmers
through food
November
19, 2018 from WSU Insider
By Seth
Truscott, WSU College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences
BURLINGTON,
Wash. – As the first culinary director of The Bread Lab — Washington State
University’s Burlington-based research center for bread and grains — Niels
Brisbane is pioneering foods and flavors that help Washington farmers, chefs
and communities thrive.
Hired
earlier this year, the former sous chef at Seattle’s landmark Canlis restaurant
develops dishes that bring The Bread Lab discoveries and the agricultural
bounty of Northwest to the world.
“People
come here hungry for knowledge,” said Brisbane. “I help feed them.”
Flavors of
discovery
A 2018
winner of Eater’s Young Guns award, Brisbane researches dishes that highlight
WSU grains bred for Northwest farmers and chefs. He’s also helping connect the
region’s culinary community with the farmers who grow our food.
“Niels
really broadens the reach of our work,” said Kim Binczewski, managing director
of The Bread Lab. Grains are just one part of the local agricultural and food
economy, which the lab’s discoveries support far beyond bread and beer.
“Niels is
here to help us showcase all of that variety to the greater Seattle community,
as well as the farmers of Skagit and Whatcom counties,” Binczewski said.
Strong
connection
Brisbane’s
role at The Bread Lab is funded by a gift from Canlis, where he worked for the
past four years. He specialized in researching new menu items: connecting with
local farmers and artisans to create compelling new dishes. He brought fellow
Canlis chefs to The Bread Lab for regular visits.
At last
summer’s Grain Gathering, Brisbane toured the lab’s newly completed kitchen,
and listened as Bread Lab Director Stephen Jones told visiting chefs, “Please
come and use it.”
“That
started my wheels turning,” Brisbane said. “The research that I’d been doing at
Canlis is relevant to the entire food community. I saw The Bread Lab as a way
to bring researchers and growers together with chefs to share ideas. I knew I
needed to come here.”
Buckets of
barley: Foods that solve challenges
The recipe
for miso dates back to ancient Japan. But the barley and beans fermenting under
a heavy bucket in Brisbane’s kitchen laboratory are pure Skagit County.
Barley
isn’t as valuable as other cash crops, but regional growers rely on it as an
important rotation crop that breaks up weed and disease cycles. Brisbane’s miso
is one of the ways he’s finding new, valuable uses for barley, helping growers
solve a challenge while giving chefs a new dish with an interesting Northwest
spin.
Fermenting
local barley with Koji — a fussy mold that requires precise temperature and
humidity and frequent stirs — Brisbane presses the paste of local grains, beans
and salt in buckets to age comfortably for months or years.
“Time does
the rest,” Brisbane said. The end result is earthy, aromatic and slightly
sweet. Brisbane suspects he may the only chef in Washington state crafting his
own miso.
Nearby is
a bottle of experimental maraschino cherries. Locally bred Black Republican
cherry trees produce fruit that’s too small to sell commercially. As a
cultivar, it’s really only used to pollinate more popular varieties like Bings
and Rainiers.
“I want to
find better ways to preserve its fruit,” said Brisbane, giving cocktail and
dessert makers a tiny, purple topper.
As a chef,
Brisbane loves working with farmers to find foods that are unique to the
Northwest and help dishes stand out. That’s what makes cooking special, he
said.
By sharing
his dishes and discoveries, the end results are a stronger agricultural
community, restaurants with better, more nutritious ingredients, and dishes
worth traveling the world to taste.
“We’re
taking our new discoveries, and forgotten products from Northwest farms and
orchards, and turning them into valuable, premium foods with a story to tell,”
Brisbane said. “The WSU Bread Lab is showing what can be done when people blend
their ideas and vision.”
:::::::::::
The cost
of cupcakes
By Jon
Wilner, San Jose Merc News
No topic
in Pac-12 football is as fiercely considered or debated as the schedule. (Okay,
besides the officiating.)
Within the
larger issue of scheduling are several subsets, one of which is the merits of
eliminating a conference game to put the Pac-12 on an even playing field with
the SEC.
There are
several reasons for the Pac-12’s position that nine league games and three
non-conference games is the best system for its structure and schools.
I have
nine million more to submit right here.
The SEC’s
schedule model calls for a so-called Cupcake Weekend in the middle of November,
when the fourth non-conference game is slotted into the stretch run to provide
a break from the grind.
That game
is invariably against a cupcake, because other Power Five teams are immersed in
conference play.
But the
cupcakes cost money, folks: Eight SEC teams paid out $9 million in guarantees
to the Nov. 17 cupcakes, according to figures from USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz,
who tracks major college finances.
The
payouts ranged from $400,000 to $1.6 million:
Texas A&M:
$1.6 million for UAB
Georgia:
$1.5 million for UMass
LSU: $1.4
million for Rice
Kentucky:
$1.255 million for Middle Tennessee State
Auburn:
$1.25 millon for Liberty
Florida:
$1.2 million for Idaho
Alabama:
$500,000 for The Citadel
South
Carolina: $400,000 for Chattanooga
Coaching
salaries, ticket prices and facility upkeep aren’t the only escalating costs in
major college football. The price of cupcakes is rising, too.
The SEC
can afford it, thanks to its TV deal and packed 100,000-seat stadiums.
Many
Pac-12 athletic departments cannot afford to add a $500,000 guarantee game to
their budgets, in part because the real cost of an additional cupcake would be
greater than the figure on the paycheck.
Pull
Stanford from ASU’s schedule and add Idaho … remove Utah from Oregon’s schedule
and add Sacramento State … and you’re guaranteed to lose thousands of paying
customers, too.
Athletic
departments would be replacing a cost-free visitor with a paycheck-required
opponent, and they would lose revenue from ticket sales, parking, concessions,
alcohol sales — all of it.
Suddenly,
the real cost of that fourth non-conference game, even at less-than-SEC prices,
gets close to seven figures.
(Eliminating
a conference game carries other ramifications, such as reduced exposure to the
L.A. market for the four Northwest schools, but that’s another discussion.)
If the
Pac-12 wants to slide a non-conference game into November to provided a break
and reduce the chance of a loss when the outcomes matter most, it should
absolutely do that.
But do it
within the existing nine/three schedule structure: Move a cupcake weekend from
September to November and a conference weekend from November to September.
Heaping an
FCS opponent onto the current plate is far too pricey a proposition.
:::::::::::::::
(Opening
part of story by Chantel Jennings below
from The Athletic appears to be very interesting. However, News for CougGroup
does not have access to the entire article.)
The
Atlantic says, reporter "Chantel Jennings covers national college football
for The Athletic. She previously covered the Pac-12, Michigan and recruiting
for ESPN.com." Before that she covered Pac-12 for the Portland Oregonian.
So, she knows the Pac-12 in the Pacific Northwest ...
‘5,000
Throws’: Gardner Minshew’s winding road and the creation of the ultimate Air
Raid quarterback
By Chantel
Jennings Nov 19, 2018, The Athletic
Houston
Smith was sitting on his couch in Starkville, Miss., when he got the phone call
from his best friend Gardner Minshew.
“He calls
me and he’s like, ‘Dude, you’re not going to believe this … (Mike Leach) called
and said, ‘Do you want to come lead the nation in passing?’ ” Smith said. “It
was one of those things you’ll never forget. I think it’s fair to say it was a life-changing
moment.”
From
eighth grade on, the two had had sleepovers nearly every Friday night,
alternating between the Minshews and the Smiths. During football season, they’d
wake up and watch games on Saturday. And when it wasn’t football season, they’d
wake up and play the “NCAA Football” video game.
Without
fail, Minshew would play as Texas Tech. The Mississippi native had no Texas
Tech ties, had never met Leach and had never even seen a college team run the
scheme. But he was all in.
“From a
very early age, he had this infatuation...
(Remainder
of story not available.)
….
==But, for
reading this far you get this story about Mike Leach she wrote in September
2014
Mike Leach
feels at home in Pullman
Sep 17,
2014
By Chantel
Jennings
ESPN Staff
Writer
PULLMAN,
Wash. -- Most days, the first part of Mike Leach's workday is spent knee-deep
in a field of garbanzo beans.
He and his
wife, Sharon, refer to this as going "over the hill," but it's
actually a bit more dangerous than that. It's a downhill trek that's best done
in a slightly sideways maneuver, keeping one foot angled in front of the other.
The dirt gives under any amount of weight and the burrs that hide beneath the
plants are unforgiving to socks and skin.
Leach
recommends light hiking boots for this route to his office, and he isn't wrong.
Halfway
down the hill, he reaches down and grabs a stem, pops a tan pod off the plant
and cracks it open.
"Hummus
is a relatively recent food fad in America," says Leach, as he bites down
on the garbanzo bean and throws the shell over his shoulder.
It has
been a hot, dry summer, making the top layer of soil even more arid than usual.
Here, they call this region the Palouse. Everywhere else, they just call it
Eastern Washington. It's a hilly area doused in rich soil, perfect for the
farming of legumes and wheat.
When Leach
moved here in December of 2011, after becoming Washington State's head football
coach, that's what he was most curious about. He spent the entire flight from
Spokane to Pullman asking the Cougars' media relations official about the
Palouse.
Why was it
called the Palouse? Is it due to volcanic activity or glacial runoff? What is
grown there now? What's the projected agricultural value of the land in the
coming years?
At
previous coaching stops, Leach rollerbladed or biked to work, but in Pullman --
through the Palouse -- it's a hike. The first 10 to 15 minutes are spent wading
through the garbanzo patch. From there, he removes the burrs from his socks
before crossing the road, where his route varies among the different
neighborhoods, parks and streets leading into town. The whole trip takes him
anywhere between 40-55 minutes, sometimes longer, depending on what captures
his attention along the way.
Most
mornings, during his walk to work, you'll find Mike Leach at Tyson Feasel's
Café Moro. Jose Mandojana for ESPN
He's the
busiest man in Pullman who has no interest in keeping a schedule.
His most
frequent stop is at Café Moro, where owner Tyson Feasel almost asked Leach to
leave the first time he entered. Leach had walked into the café with a
competitor's mug, but as Feasel approached Leach, Feasel, a college football
fan, realized it was the school's new coach and decided to forgive the
transgression.
The
regulars at Café Moro know Leach well. He wrote the majority of his most recent
book, "Geronimo: Leadership Strategies of an American Warrior," in a
small room tucked away near the back. Typically, he orders a tea, though on
particularly rough days he'll order a shot of espresso and mix in four bags of
sugar.
Today he
has already finished one cup of tea and one cup of coffee. He again has walked
into the coffee shop with a non-Café Moro cup, but Feasel says nothing.
"I
feel like a caffeine addict," he says as he sips green tea and makes his
way down Main Street.
Everyone
here knows him. Leach seems to know mostly everyone, too.
Some, he
knows better than others. He likes Feasel and asks how business is going. He
really likes Cesar Ramirez, the owner of Taqueria Chaparrito, Leach's favorite
Mexican restaurant. Leach admires Ramirez, who left a more successful
restaurant to open up a hole in the wall place that still manages to serve the
best Mexican food on the Palouse.
For Leach,
this walk is an easy way to get exercise during the season. Even in the dead of
winter, he still makes the there-and-back tour at least four times a week.
"When
else could I get that in?" he asks. "Two birds. One stone."
It also
allows him to indulge his curious nature. He's lived in Pullman almost three
years, but there's still plenty for him to explore.
"Follow
me this way," he says after getting onto a path. "There's an
interesting cemetery through the park. Once, I saw a group of kids dressed in
all black doing a séance or something there."
Leach
feels at home in Pullman, which he said reminds him of his hometown of Cody,
Wyoming.
The locals
say there are four main hills in Pullman.
Leach has
yet to figure out which four those are amidst the other hundred or so.
There doesn't
seem to be a single part of the city that is naturally flat. Even the roads
seem to favor one side or the other. It's a wonder anything built more than 10
years ago is still level.
It's in
this tiny, condensed pocket, comprising of the Pullman campus, with roughly
20,000 students, and the bordering neighborhoods, amid fields that stretch as
far as the horizon, where Leach has made his new home.
There are
parts of the city that remind him of his hometown of Cody, Wyoming, several
hundred miles east, on the opposite side of the Rockies. Both are roughly 10
square miles and feature a dated main drag.
"They're
both full of hard, strong people that spend a lot of time outdoors," said
Leach.
In Cody,
he was right in the mountains, different from the "foothills" in
Pullman. But there are mountains nonetheless.
"You're
gaining more than you're losing in a small town," said Leach.
Cody isn't
a place that anyone is just going to drive through. It's a place that one needs
to be going to in order to get to.
That, like
Pullman, has left it a bit isolated and untainted.
There
isn't a major city within an hour of Pullman, but it's a place where nothing
feels rushed. Even the Missouri Flat Creek slows to a trickling stream here in
Pullman.
It had
been a struggle to recruit to a place like this. It doesn't really offer
anything that any other Pac-12 school or town doesn't have. Seattle has the
food and the ocean. Eugene has Nike. Los Angeles has the Cali vibe.
And what
does Pullman have?
Leach.
Leach's
hire infused a new energy and enthusiasm to a program that had fallen on hard
times. Jose Mandojana for ESPN
On one of
Leach's walks last spring, he made a phone call to Graham Harrell, his
quarterback when he was head coach at Texas Tech.
He had
invited Harrell to Pullman earlier that spring to spend a few days with his
staff and watch film. Leach framed it to Harrell as "just coming to hang
out." On the last night of Harrell's visit, sitting in Leach's backyard
with other members of Leach's staff, Leach asked if Harrell would be interested
in a position at Washington State if he were able to work something out.
Harrell
said yes. Leach nodded, and left it at that.
A few
weeks later, while walking through the garbanzo field, Leach called to tell
Harrell he had, in fact, been able to work something out, and he expected to
see Harrell in Pullman in the next few days.
"Eventually
he's going to be a coach," said Leach. "There's no question about
that.
"He's
got a great mind and he knows how we do things."
When Leach
says "we" he means the team and the staff. But there's a more
important "we": Leach and his quarterback. The understanding between
Leach and his quarterback is vital to running his offense effectively, so the
benefit of having one of his best pupils in the room is certainly a plus for
the Cougars.
For
Harrell, the transition from being Leach's quarterback to being on his staff
has made for an interesting change in perspective. He helped make Leach and
Texas Tech a household name in 2008, becoming the school's all-time leader in
passing yards and leading the Red Raiders to as high as No. 2 in the AP poll.
In many ways, Harrell is the embodiment of what the Air Raid offense can
achieve.
There was
one thing, however, that he never really got while he was Leach's quarterback.
And it's the same thing that Cougars QB Connor Halliday doesn't get now.
Ask
Halliday if -- or when -- Leach gets sentimental, and he'll respond that he
only sees it when Leach is talking about his children.
"Leach
lights up," said Halliday.
Harrell
would have given the same answer when he was at Texas Tech. That is, until the
moment his career came to an end, in the locker room following a loss in the
2009 Cotton Bowl, when Leach was visibly choked up while delivering a postgame
speech.
Even then,
it took a while before the realization struck. As his teammates gathered their
things, Leach came up to Harrell and, as he had done many times previously, put
his hand on Harrell's shoulder.
Leach had
done it plenty of times before. At practice, during games, during film study,
when everything was going wrong, when everything was going right -- whenever
Leach spoke to Harrell seriously, he put his hand on his shoulder.
"When
he started doing it -- he'd do it between series and stuff -- at first I was
like, 'Why is he so awkward? Why does he do that?'" said Harrell.
"I
think it was his sentimental side, letting me know he cares about me."
Leach told
him that he had realized this would be the last time the two were in a locker
room together as player and coach, and that he had enjoyed being Harrell's
coach.
"It's
not something profound or something that nice, but coming from him, when you never
see that side of him, it meant a ton to me," said Harrell. "I don't
know if I'll ever see that side of him again or if he'll ever say something
like that to me again.
"I
don't know if I'll ever get that moment with him again."
Perhaps he
won't. But he does recognize those moments between Leach and Halliday.
And though
Halliday doesn't see it now, he does get the softer side of Leach. Harrell had
it in Lubbock, Texas. Now he's watching it develop in Pullman.
Wazzu
recently finished massive renovations to Martin Stadium and built a new
football complex. Jose Mandojana for ESPN
In
November 2011, shortly before Leach was hired to coach the Cougars, Washington
State athletic director Bill Moos flew to Key West to meet with Leach.
He had
told Leach that it'd be a casual meeting. So in retrospect, he knows he
shouldn't have been surprised when Leach showed up in a dress shirt and cargo
shorts ... and brought his own Styrofoam cup of coffee ... and rode his bike to
the hotel in which
Moos was
staying.
The first
five minutes of the interview went as planned. They talked football.
But for
the next hour the conversation swayed from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
to Winston Churchill to how they both spent their days as children when school
was cancelled because of snow.
Moos liked
when Leach talked about growing up in Cody. He too was from a small town,
Edwall, Washington, and knew whatever coach he hired had to have an
appreciation for places like Pullman and Cody.
"He
never lived or was attracted to the bright lights of the big city," said
Moos. "I didn't want to just hire somebody who would use Washington State
as a stepping stone, but rather to look at Washington State as a
destination."
When Moos
hired Leach, the proposal for a new $61 million football facility had already
been put in front of the WSU regents.
Washington
State's New Football Complex
Take a
look inside the Cougars' brand-new football facilities.
Renovations
adding premium seating at Martin Stadium had just been completed, and questions
remained as to whether a team that hadn't been to a bowl game in a decade would
actually be able to fill it.
Within two
weeks of Leach's hiring, the 21 suites were sold-out, as were the 42 loge boxes
and the majority of the club seats. Requests were being sent to the athletic
department for season tickets. Fifty came from Texas.
Leach
ignited a fan base and a city before he even stepped on campus. He was a former
national coach of the year, a New York Times bestselling author, a man whose
offense guaranteed some kind of excitement in this otherwise sleepy town.
The
Cougars reached a bowl last season, Leach's second in charge, but are off to a
rocky start this season, with losses to Rutgers and Nevada. Even so, Moos knows
the program is headed in the right direction. His confidence in Leach hasn't
wavered.
In 2012,
the Cougars sold out their first home game with Leach at the helm. It was the
first home-opening sellout for Washington State since 1951, the same year Moos
was born.
In all of
Moos' years as a Washington State fan, including three years playing on the
football team, the Cougars had never sold out a home opener.
Until
Leach arrived.
The
Cougars ended a long bowl drought last season but are off to a 1-2 start in
2014. Jose Mandojana for ESPN
Someone
always asks Leach if he wants a ride home. He hardly ever accepts. If he does
want a ride home, he'll call Sharon. But even that is getting increasingly
rare.
Tonight
there's a warm breeze bouncing across the Palouse that he wants to enjoy. Soon,
the snow will come and he'll get mad at himself for not taking in more of these
evenings. And so he kicks off his flip-flops, puts them back under his desk and
laces up his Nikes.
He follows
his usual path through the campus. He doesn't notice the couple kissing by the
river or the fraternity boys sneaking brown bags of alcohol through campus, but
he sees a constellation and it reminds him of a story from Cody.
Leach
crosses the last main street of the town and starts up a hill. Up until this
point, streetlights and businesses light the way, but the streetlights become
unreliable here. Some flicker. Some don't turn on at all. He thinks there's a
pattern to which ones are on and off on certain days, but he hasn't figured it
out yet. At some point, he probably will.
A porch
light illuminates one of his favorite houses in the city. Everything from the
chocolate exterior and white columns to the blue potted plants are pretty neat,
he thinks. He would've loved to move into a fixer-upper, though he knows he'd
never have time to actually fix it up. Besides, he says, Sharon prefers new
construction.
He
continues up the hill past the Gladish Community Center.
"Glad-ish,"
Leach jokes, with emphasis on the ish. "They haven't fully committed to
the idea of it yet."
He laughs
at his own joke.
Up around
the bend he cautions that the trail gets a bit tricky. By "tricky" he
means damn near impossible.
Here, not
a single streetlight illuminates the path and it becomes impossible to decipher
the cement walkway from the grass beside it from the occasional street signs.
Leach remarks that this night is the darkest he can remember during any of his
walks home. The trek is further complicated by the fact that the path curves at
a 30-degree angle toward the highway. He slipped on ice here last winter. He
told Sharon he'd wear the spikes for his shoes that she bought him, but he will
not use a flashlight.
Eventually
he gets into a newly-built neighborhood and hikes through a few of the plots
waiting to be built upon. This space exposes the dark Palouse dirt, though at
this time of night, with how little light there is, the dirt looks the same as
the sky.
"Let's
move," he says, climbing over a tree branch and moving further into the
bushes. His pace doesn't slow. His breathing hasn't changed. He just keeps on
with his walk that he makes nearly every day. The city has disappeared behind
him in one of the many Pullman hills. His house won't be visible for quite some
time. The city fell silent hours ago and the only noise is Leach pushing the
plants out of his way as he makes his way to the base of the hill.
And for
just a few minutes it's Leach in a field of garbanzos, and everything seems to
make perfect sense.
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