WSU SWIMMING: 7 COUGS EARN PAC-12 ALL-ACADEMIC HONORS
From WSU Sports Info 3/19/2018
SAN FRANCISCO - Seven members of the Washington State
swimming team earned Pac-12 Conference All-Academic honors, the conference
office announced Monday. Sophomore Luci Brock and senior Ciera Kelly were both
named to the All-Academic First Team.
Sophomore Ryan Falk and junior Penny Nichols were both named
to the second team while Seniors Anna Brolin and Rachel Thompson along with
junior Jasmine Margetts all earned honorable mention.
To be eligible for selection to the all-academic teams, a
student-athlete must have a minimum 3.00 GPA and participate in at least half
of their team's scheduled regular season events.
Kelly was named to the first team for the second-consecutive
season after posting a 3.92 GPA while majoring in zoology. Brock joins Kelly on
the first team with a 3.86 GPA. This is Brock's first all-academic honors.
Falk earned her first career all-academic honor after
producing a 3.57 GPA. Nichols earned her second career all-academic honor after
earning first team accolades last season. The Phoenix, Ariz. native owns a 3.58
GPA while majoring in viticulture and enology.
Brolin earned honorable mention honors for the third
consecutive season after posting a 3.01 GPA while majoring in accounting.
Thompson earned her third career all-academic honor after producing a 3.12 GPA
while majoring in marketing. Margetts was named to the honorable mention team
for the second consecutive season. The Torrance, Calif. native owns a 3.50 GPA
while majoring in environmental science.
The Cougars have a history of excelling in the classroom. In
January, the team earned the College Swimming Coaches Association of America
Scholar All-America Team honors for the fifth straight semester. The Cougars
boasted an impressive 3.26 overall team GPA during the Fall 2017 semester.
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2018 WSU spring football schedule/ First practice March 22
COUGFANcom - Feb 8, 1:08 PM
WASHINGTON STATE has released the dates for its spring
football session which kicks off next month.
The Cougars kick off the first of 15 spring practices on
Thursday, March 22 and wrap things up on Tuesday, April 24.
WSU is scheduled to practice this spring on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays.
Leading into spring ball, Washington State will hold its
winter conditioning session. Mike Leach
in his Signing Day press conference said he rescheduled Midnight Maneuvers,
originally set to begin this past Sunday, to early March due to Tyler
Hilinski's death.
CF.C will be keeping you locked in this spring but if you
get the chance to head to Pullman, here's the schedule to plan your trip
around.
Note that all Saturday practice times are TBA except for the
Crimson and Gray Game, which will be held at 1 pm in Spokane's Joe Albi Stadium
on April 21.
March 22: 3:30 pm
March 24: TBA
March 27: 3:30 pm
March 29: 3:30 pm
March 31: TBA
April 3: 3:30 pm
April 5: 3:30 pm
April 7: TBA
April 10: 3:30 pm
April 12: 3:30 pm
April 14: TBA
April 17: 3:30 pm
April 19: 3:30 pm
April 21: 1 pm, Crimson and Gray Game
April 24: 3:30 pm
The first two days of the spring are NCAA-mandated
helmets-only sessions, after which the pads go on.
The spring game under Mike Leach is always the penultimate spring
practice session, with the 15th and final spring practice held in Pullman.
Leach uses that final session to work on areas from the spring game the
coaching staff has identified as most in need of attention.
Spring is always a time of change in college football. But
Washington State this March and April will have more than customary, including
four new assistant coaches as well as a new quarterback running with the
first-team offense for the first time since Luke Falk took over the starting
job late in the 2014 season.
In last year's spring game, QB Trey Tinsley turned heads
completing 3 of his first 4 passes and 11 of 17 overall for 139 yards. Along
the way he fired two TD passes -- a gorgeous, 37-yard strike down the middle to
Robert Lewis and a 2-yarder to Easop Winston.
Here's what Tinsley told CF.C after the game.
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English professor Buddy Levy back on History Channel
March 19, 2018By David Wasson, WSU News at WSU INSIDER
Narrative historian and WSU English professor Buddy Levy is
making a return to the History Channel.
Levy, the author of a 2005 biography about early American
adventurer Davy Crockett, is among the experts interviewed for the cable
network’s latest documentary series “The Men Who Built America: Frontiersmen.”
He appears in episodes 3 and 4, which air March 21 and 28.
“When we first talked
it was clear they were looking to understand more than just who the people
were,” Levy said. “They wanted to know about the frontier and what it was like
to set out into the unknown.”
The new series by executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio
explores the formative period of history featuring what it describes as the
first 75 volatile years of the United States — from the Revolution through the
California Gold Rush. It was a time when historical figures such as Crockett,
Daniel Boone, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, John Fremont and Andrew
Jackson spearheaded the fledgling nation’s expansion west into uncharted land.
The series, which features dramatic reenactments of
exploration in the frontier era, premiered March 7.
The new project marks a return to History Channel for Levy,
who was a cast member from 2010-12 on Brad Meltzer’s Decoded during its
two-season run. Decoded explored historical mysteries and Levy was one of the
show’s four researchers.
In this latest project, Levy was contacted back in 2016 and
interviewed at his home in Moscow, Idaho. Producers knew about his book, American
Legend: The Real-life Adventures of David Crockett, but sent him an exhaustive
list of questions.
“Basically, they were
looking at my knowledge of David Crockett the historical figure and David
Crockett the man,” Levy recalled. “But they were also looking at my
understanding of the frontier.”
Levy is among several academics, historians and others
providing their expertise to the four-part documentary series.
History and adventure are common themes for Levy.
His latest book is No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to
Kayak the Grand Canyon (St. Martin’s Press, 2017), which he wrote with
adventurer Erik Weihenmayer. His other books include Geronimo: Leadership
Lessons of An American Warrior (co-authored with Mike Leach, Simon &
Schuster, May 2014); River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana’s Legendary Voyage
of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon (Bantam Dell, 2011). He also is the
author of Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of
the Aztecs (Bantam Dell, 2008), which was a finalist for the Pacific Northwest
Booksellers Association Award, 2009, and nominated for the Before Columbus
Foundation American Book Award, 2009, and the PEN Center USA Award 2009; and
Echoes On Rimrock: In Pursuit of the Chukar Partridge (Pruett, 1998). His books
have been published in six languages.
As a freelance journalist Levy has covered adventure sports
and lifestyle/travel subjects around the world, including numerous
Eco-Challenges and other adventure expeditions in Argentina, Borneo, Europe,
Greenland, Morocco, and the Philippines.
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Common Reading Event: 80s Game Night & Crimson Key Gala
planned for March 27
March 19, 2018 WSU INSIDER
WSU students are invited to celebrate the conclusion of this
year’s Order of the Crimson Key competition and play retro board games at the
80s Game Night & Crimson Key Gala from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, March 27, in the
Terrell Library Atrium.
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According to the Order of the Crimson Key website:
The Order of the Crimson Key is a mysterious organization
dedicated to understanding the best ways to be successful at Washington State
University. To join The Order of the Crimson Key you must be clever,
insightful, possess extensive knowledge, and you must be dedicated to the
values of WSU. Membership is available to all, but accessible to only the brave
few who seek to follow the path to its conclusion.
So you want to join the Order of the Crimson Key?
To be a full member you will need to expand your mind,
challenge your awareness, explore your surroundings, and experience life at
WSU. Accomplishing these tasks will award you points, increase your ranking,
and may eventually earn you fabulous prizes.
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Saving spinach: A WSU plant researcher’s work helps
lucrative spinach seed industry
Sun., March 18, 2018, 6 a.m. By Rachel Alexander S-R of
Spokane
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. – Lindsey du Toit is on a mission to
save American spinach seeds.
Her greenhouse at Washington State University’s Mount Vernon
Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center is full of young spinach
plants growing in small pots, organized in groups of 12.
Some overflow with healthy green leaves. Others are bare,
with a few pins showing where spinach had briefly lived, then died.
“This grower is going to be happy,” du Toit said, pointing
at healthy leaves shooting out of the pots from field 23.
Growing spinach for seeds is a fussy enterprise. The plant
“bolts,” switching its growth from new leaves to flowers and seeds, only when
exposed to lots of daylight. It also fares better in cooler climates, and the
developing seed can be damaged by fungi if it gets wet.
Farmers plant spinach seeds in late March or early April and
typically harvest by mid-May.
The plant first grows spinach leaves, then begins to flower.
The leaves change shape and become more bitter, and the plant grows stalks with
flower buds. Seeds develop and will eventually dry and turn brown, indicating
they’re ready for harvest.
Because of the long days and climate required to grow
spinach seeds, a small slice of western Washington and Oregon is the only part
of the United States well-suited to producing the crop. Washington produces
about one-quarter, mostly in Skagit and Snohomish counties.
And the Skagit Valley is running out of land.
The problem is a fungus called Fusarium oxysporum, which
enters spinach plants through the roots and grows inside the plant’s vascular
system, preventing water and nutrients from reaching the leaves. Eventually,
the plant withers and dies.
Fusarium wilt, as the disease is called, has been a known
problem among farmers for decades. The fix was simple, if imperfect: leave
fields fallow for 15 to 20 years, and it’s usually safe to plant spinach again.
But over time, the spread of the fungus has made it hard for
growers to find fresh soil.
“There used to be 3,500 to 4,000 acres of spinach seed in
Skagit County and there’s closer to 2,000 now,” said Kirby Johnson, a seed
farmer and president of the Puget Sound Seed Growers Association.
The acreage planted each season varies, depending on the
contracts growers get with seed companies. Those companies like to spread out
risk between growing regions, du Toit said, reducing the chance that a bad
growing year decimates their entire seed supply.
Washington’s main competition for spinach is in Denmark,
which is seeing a boom thanks to skyrocketing demand for baby spinach.
Baby leaves can be harvested as soon as 18 days after
planting, du Toit said, and growers in California and Arizona can plant
year-round. A typical crop takes about four million seeds per acre.
“It’s changed spinach completely as a commodity,” du Toit
said.
Growers in Denmark have a major advantage: They rarely have
to worry about fusarium. Because their soils are alkaline, fusarium wilt
doesn’t thrive in them.
Denmark is also at a higher latitude than Washington, so it
can grow some varieties of spinach that require even longer days to bolt.
To keep up, Washington growers have to work around fusarium.
It’s a challenge for many reasons. One of the biggest being
that leaving a field without spinach for 15 or 20 years isn’t a guarantee that
fusarium is gone.
Du Toit recalled working with a farmer once who planted a
50-acre field for spinach seed and had most of his crop die from fusarium.
Forty of those acres hadn’t had spinach on them for 16 years, and the other 10
had been left for 25 years. The 10 acres were a bit healthier, but the result
was catastrophic for the grower.
With an acre of spinach seed selling for $2,000 to $3,000,
it’s not a gamble farmers want to take.
The WSU research center is looking at many options for
stopping the fungus, including treating seeds.
Applying fungicide isn’t effective, du Toit said, because
the fungus lives in the soil and is absorbed through the plant’s roots. Since
water and nutrients flow from the soil to the plant, not the other way,
treating the plant itself won’t kill the fungus in the soil. And treating an
entire field of soil is cost-prohibitive – and can kill many helpful nutrients
and organisms in the soil.
But to limit the damage in the meantime, du Toit’s answer
has been soil testing, a project her lab started about a decade ago. For $200
per field, farmers can bring in a five-gallon bucket of soil before spring
planting begins.
In each soil sample, du Toit and her students plant three
varieties of spinach: one that’s somewhat resistant to fusarium, another,
weaker variety and one in the middle. Each soil-variety combination gets four
pots, which are distributed throughout the greenhouse so small differences in
light and airflow affect each batch equally.
This year’s test involved 57 soil samples from Skagit Valley
farmers, each from a different field.
“There’s probably $20 million of crop being assessed here,”
she said.
It’s a service farmers say has helped them avoid crop
failure.
“This last year I had a field I thought was probably ready
for spinach and if I would not have taken that sample in to her, I probably
would have plotted that field,” said Todd Johnson, a Skagit County seed grower
(no relation to Kirby Johnson). Instead, he was able to move his production,
avoiding a crop failure or reduced yield.
Test results can be a double-edged sword.
“It’s also made seed companies not give me a contract on a
field that I’d have planted,” Kirby Johnson said. He didn’t think the results
were too bad, but the company didn’t want to take the risk.
Kirby Johnson isn’t bitter about it, though. He said du
Toit’s work is critical for helping Skagit Valley farmers.
“She is by far the best researcher that we’ve had here in my
lifetime,” he said.
Du Toit’s latest project is evaluating spinach varieties for
resistance to fusarium. She’s hoping to find solutions that will help farmers
work with the disease, rather than just avoiding contaminated fields.
Fusarium is a genus of fungus that affects many other crops,
including barley and bananas. It’s the pathogen behind Panama disease, the
fungal wilt that wiped out Gros Michel banana plantations across Central
America in the 1940s through 1960s.
The species that wilts spinach thrives in acidic soils like
those in western Washington.
Hybrid spinach seeds are grown in a closed market, where
farmers work under contracts with seed companies and are paid per pound of seed
they produce. Farmers may have little idea how the strain they’re growing
responds to disease.
“Some growers don’t know how susceptible their lines are,”
du Toit said.
In the Skagit Valley, the growers and seed companies have a
regional meeting in March where everyone maps out their fields. To avoid
genetic drift and contamination, plots of different spinach varieties must have
at least a mile between them, Kirby Johnson said.
Seed companies give farmers the seeds they’re going to grow.
Breeding varieties that are resistent to fusarium hasn’t been a priority, du
Toit said, because seed companies have so many other things they need to breed
for: resistance to diseases common in the California spinach fields, deep green
color and transportability.
“Historically, there hasn’t been a need to breed for it,” du
Toit said.
Her second greenhouse tests new lines of spinach by growing
them in soil with various degrees of fusarium contamination. Some varieties do
well in all three soil samples, while others wither and die in the
fusarium-rich mix.
Seed companies bring her lines they want to test and pay $75
for each variety. She said it’s not uncommon to hear that spinach varieties
she’s working with are still under development.
Todd Johnson said he’s hopeful her work could lead to
spinach seeds that are more resistant to the wilt. That could mean farmers
don’t have to wait quite as long between spinach crops, freeing up land to keep
baby spinach on the table.
“If we could get down to an 8- or 10-year rotation, I think
we would be in great shape,” he said.
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Washington State men’s basketball assistant Curtis Allen to
reunite with Lorenzo Romar, Ken Bone at Pepperdine
UPDATED: Mon., March 19, 2018, 1:48 p.m.
By Theo Lawson Spokane S-R
PULLMAN – Washington State assistant Curtis Allen, a former
Washington Husky guard who spent two years playing for Lorenzo Romar and 11
more coaching for Ken Bone at Portland State at WSU, will reunite with two of
his mentors at Pepperdine.
Allen announced via Twitter Monday morning he was leaving
WSU for Pepperdine, though it’s not clear what title he’ll hold for the Waves: “I
would like to thank the community of Pullman, support staff, and the
administration for all of the support over the last 9 years. My family and I are very grateful for the
friends we’ve made and the fun we’ve had!”
Pepperdine announced last week that Romar, the Waves’ head
coach from 1996-99, would be returning to coach the program for the second
time. Romar spent 15 years as the head coach at UW, taking over the reins of
the program when Allen was a junior for the Huskies.
That’s Allen’s first connection to the Pepperdine staff.
The other is Bone, who coached the Cougars from 2009-14 and
Portland State from 2005-09. Bone gave Allen his first college coaching job
when he hired the Tacoma native as a PSU assistant in 2005, then brought him to
Pullman in 2009 when Bone was hired to replace Tony Bennett.
When Ernie Kent was hired by then-athletic director Bill
Moos in 2014, Allen was the lone holdover. The 2017-18 season was Allen’s ninth
as an assistant coach for the Cougars and his fourth under Kent, who once
recruited the Wilson High standout he was the head coach at Oregon, but lost
out when Allen committed to the Huskies.
Allen’s recruiting ties to Tacoma have been instrumental in
bringing some of the area’s best players to Pullman over the years. Starting
point guard Malachi Flynn, a Bellarmine Prep guard who was the Washington 4A
State Player of the Year, calls Tacoma home, and fellow guard Viont’e Daniels
hails from nearby Federal Way. Daniels was a 3A State Player of the Year at
Federal Way High School.
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