Clarifying previous comments, WSU football Coach Jake Dickert ‘meant no disrespect’ to Lee Corso, ESPN Gameday

Clarifying previous comments, WSU football Coach Jake Dickert ‘meant no disrespect’ to Lee Corso, ESPN Gameday

By Greg Woods, Spokane S-R, Tue 26 Sept 2023

PULLMAN — On Saturday, moments after his Washington State team knocked off Oregon State, Jake Dickert took reporters back to his morning. He was watching College Gameday, he said, when host Lee Corso called the Cougars/Beavers game “The No One Watches Bowl.”

“I would love to have a conversation with Coach Corso about the value that he sees in breaking up the premier west coast conference,” Dickert said. “And I’d also love to have a conversation with Coach Corso about how he thinks student-athletes and mental health and flying them all over the country is a positive thing. I’m open to those conversations, because I’m fact-based on everything that we do.”

Over the weekend, Dickert got a chance to do just that. During his availability on Tuesday, he said he called Corso on Sunday and chatted about his comments, saying he “meant no disrespect” to Corso or the TV show.

“They’re tremendous for our brand and what they do for us nationally every week,” Dickert said, referring to the WSU flag Ol’ Crimson, which has now flown at College Gameday for 291 straight shows. “It was never a comment about disrespect towards any of those people. My frustrations really still stem from, there’s a conglomerate of people that have made a lot of decisions that have been outside mostly our control. And the lack of clarity, based on the metrics and the real facts is where my frustration really comes from.

Dickert went on to discuss the impact he sees conference realignment making on the Cougars, one of two Pac-12 teams still standing, and teams across the country.

“I think it is my job to stand up for the people of Washington State, because I think these decisions greatly impact all of us,” Dickert said. “It impacts our academic institution, our faculty, student body, alumni, the community, Pullman at large. I mean, the grocery store owner down the street. Fighting for my staff and their families, all the men and women in our athletics programs. It’s really important.

“But most importantly, I’m standing up for our student-athletes. They’re the ones that are impacted the most. I think a lot of decisions that are made impact players. ‘We’re gonna move this team to this conference, and these games are gonna be awesome.’ But as coaches, we deal with people — 18-to-23-year-old people that it matters greatly to. I think there’s more pressure on young people today than ever before. My number-one job is to equip them with a toolbox to handle these things. And in our four years together here, there’s been plenty of those situations.

“I just want to make no mistake about it: These guys matter to me. And it isn’t about Cam (Ward) throwing touchdowns. It’s about 15 years from now, Cam sends me a Christmas card and I see him with his kids and his wife and his family. And I know I’ve done everything to just make sure he’s a good husband and father. It’s not about RJ (Ron Stone Jr.) or BJ (Brennan Jackson) getting sacks. It’s about me instilling character values and discipline, hard work, and those guys go impact this world the way they wanna do it.

“So I have a lot of vested interest in our people here. The players will always be number one, and I’ve been really appreciative of their focus, their discipline. Obviously we’re off to an amazing start and want to keep building on that. But these decisions do impact us all, and going forward, our whole focus is on helping Kirk (Schulz, president) and Pat (Chun, athletic director) find the next wave for Washington State. We want to compete at the highest level, and we believe and know we can do that. That’s going to be our focus going forward, and I’m excited to be a big part of that.”

Washington State and Oregon State, the only two teams set to remain in the Pac-12 after this season, are still looking for conference homes. On Sept. 11, a Washington judge ruled in favor of the two schools, which were granted a temporary restraining order against conference commissioner George Kliavkoff, canceling a board meeting that would have gathered the other 10 departing schools.

That prevented the exiting schools from trying to dissolve the conference, which could force an equal split of the conference’s remaining assets. The Cougars and Beavers’ next step is to wait for a preliminary injunction hearing, which will give them a better understanding of those assets, and that will inform their next moves.

Last week, during a joint news conference with OSU’s president and athletic director, Schulz said he expects some level of clarity within 30 days.

Bill Oram: Coach Prime and Colorado are in Eugene, but I’m going to Pullman

Bill Oram: Coach Prime and Colorado are in Eugene, but I’m going to Pullman

 By Bill Oram, Oregonian, Portland 9/22/2023

Sounds like any sportswriter with a pulse is gonna be in Eugene this weekend.

Coach Prime. Nike. Ratingzzz.

If that’s the case, somebody better call a doctor. Check my vitals. Press two fingers into my wrist and give it a 60-count.

You all can have Colorado-Oregon. I’m going to Pullman.

I’m choosing substance over spectacle. Emotion over commotion.

College football has never given us a game like the one that Oregon State and Washington State will wage on Saturday afternoon. Or, more accurately, we have never had so much taken away that a game like this was all that remained.

The Left Behind Bowl? The Pac-2 Championship?

It’s the Truce on the Palouse and we’ve never seen anything like it.

Not where the game-week buildup included a joint Zoom news conference with administrators appearing in front of a co-branded backdrop in a stand of institutional solidarity.

Not with a pledge that the home marching band would play the visitors’ fight song before kickoff.

Not with the famed flyers of Ol’ Crimson, ever-present on “College GameDay,” reserving a place in the sky to wave a Benny banner, too.

No question that Oregon hosting the most talked-about team in the country is a special occasion. Any other weekend I’d be right there alongside my fellow scribes, our hearts all pounding at a robust and physician-approved 60 to 100 beats per minute.

But with Oregon favored by 21 points, what is there to really see at Autzen?

Deion’s sunglasses? Celebrities?

Relative to the fight for survival on tap in Pullman, that all feels cheap. Hollow. Empty calories. And it’s my responsibility to go where the best story is.

If you contend that Deion vs. the Ducks is the biggest thing going down this Saturday in the college football universe, I won’t argue.

But did you ever see a movie called “The Paper”? Ron Howard directed. Michael Keaton starred. You’d like it.

In it, the ink-stained Keaton blares at a condescending rival, “I don’t live in the (expletive) world, I live in New York (expletive) City.”

Cue that energy here.

I don’t live in “the college football universe.” I live in (expletive) Oregon, and in Oregon people are hurting over the death of the Pac-12. They’re angry. They’re sad.

I hear from them every day.

I know people in Washington who feel the same.

In those places — right here — something is being taken away. By realignment. But TV execs. What’s being sacrificed at the altar of media rights is a piece of those fans’ identities.

And Saturday’s game in Pullman will double as a rally, with prideful partisans declaring, “Uh-uh, you can’t have it.”

God, I love the fight.

The heart of college football is the fans. The students. The alumni. The below-zero tailgaters.

Oregon fans, I know, are no less passionate about their Ducks than Beavers fans or Cougs. And many of them are unsettled about the leap to Big Ten, too. But they have trips to the Big House and the Horseshoe to plan for. They have a future rich with heavyweight matchups, national exposure and an endless bounty of cash.

What do Beavers and Cougars fans have to look forward to after this season? At the moment, it is an abyss of uncertainty.

That’s why what their football teams have delivered so far this season is so significant.

The Beavers are 3-0, ranked 14th in the country and have dreams of upending the whole broken enterprise by winning the last Pac-12 crown.

Washington State is also undefeated. Knocked off No. 19 Wisconsin a couple of weeks back. The Cougs, now ranked 21st in the country, have plenty to prove, too.

Maybe it’s the Tillamook County in me that I’m more drawn to the plights of Oregon State and Wazzu than the shimmer and shine of Prime and the Swoosh.

When I heard Oregon State president Jayathi Murthy speak up on behalf of rural Oregonians on Thursday and say, “To write off small communities is completely unacceptable,” I couldn’t help but pump a fist in support.

Of the institutions that killed the Pac-12 and left Washington State and Oregon State literally flapping in the Saturday morning wind, I hear the words of my guy Prime: “They made it personal.”

I love that the Cougars’ firebrand coach, Jake Dickert, has lost his voice screaming for respect. And I admire just as much that OSU coach Jonathan Smith has taken the opposite approach, choosing his words carefully and taking the fight to the football field.

Whatever happens on Saturday in Pullman isn’t going to determine how realignment ultimately shakes out for Oregon State and Washington State. It won’t dictate whether these schools scramble in tandem to the Mountain West or reassemble a zombie Pac-12.

That is all for the boardrooms, courtrooms and joint Zooms.

What we will have instead when those schools connect on Saturday will be about the humanity of football, fandom and identity.

You can have the game of the week in Eugene, if you want it.

I’ll be at the game of a lifetime.

-- Bill Oram boram@oregonian.com Twitter: @billoram

COUG VOLLEYBALL OPPONENT MUSICAL LABELS ♫

COUG VOLLEYBALL OPPONENT MUSIC LABELS ♫

UW HUSKIES ... 'Moneytalks'
OSU BEAVERS ... 'We are Family'

By Teren Kowatsch Lewiston Trib 9/22/2023

 

PULLMAN — There may not be a better way of saying “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” than what No. 7 Washington State showed Thursday night.

The Cougars volleyball squad beat the Washington Huskies 3-0 with set scores of 25-17, 25-19, 25-15 in front of a packed Bohler Gym.

“It was packed tonight, once again — we love it,” Washington State coach Jen Greeny said. “I don’t think people realize how important it is to have this homecourt advantage.”

Here are some of the highlights from the latest edition, and perhaps one of the last, of the Apple Cup Series.

Money talks

Thursday’s match was also the beginning of Pac-12 play for the Cougars. It was also the first game to have what will become a tradition for other conference rivals who come through Bohler Gym.

“Moneytalks” by AC/DC played before the game — a not-so-subtle jab at Washington and other Pac-12 schools’ decisions to leave the conference after this year.

Greeny said it was her idea to play the song, but will have another one queued up when Oregon State, the only other school other than Washington State to not yet leave the conference, comes into Bohler Gym.

“We’ll play ‘We are Family’ when Oregon State comes,” Greeny said. “But we’re not happy about (Washington leaving). We like the rivalry, we liked going on the road together, trying to beat (Pac-12) teams together. (Washington’s) volleyball team didn’t choose to leave, but their school did. ... We’ll try to send a lot of those teams out with a bang.”

Starting off strong

Starting off strong and building an early lead is one thing a lot of coaches, regardless of sport, preach heavily. Steeper hills — harder climbs.

The hills the Cougars created for the Huskies weren’t Everest, but it was enough.

Washington State (11-1, 1-0) opened the first set with a 9-2 lead, the second set with a 9-3 lead and the third with an 8-3 lead.

Aside from the opening points of each set, Washington (9-3, 0-1) only got within three points of the Cougars on a few occasions: in the second when it cut Washington State’s lead down to 20-17 and then 22-19; and a string of points in the third set where the Huskies had tied the Cougars at nine, 10 and then 11 points both ways before WSU rattled off seven straight to take an 18-11 lead.

Killing it

Another clear advantage for the Cougars were on kills. The home team had 40 total kills off 78 attacks and was hitting at a .385% clip. Washington converted 30 kills off 88 attacks and hit on only a .170% mark.

Graduate outside hitter Iman Isanovic and fifth-year outside hitter Pia Timmer accounted for more than half of WSU’s kills. Isanovic had a game-high 13 and Timmer added 10.

Timmer along with fifth-year libero Karly Basham also helped neutralize the attacks of the Huskies. Timmer had eight digs while Basham had a game-high 13.

“We have a lot of trust in each other,” Isanovic said. “We clearly worked hard on our defense. So, at no point in time are we anxious. ... Obviously, it’s a rivalry game. They came here, they want to be the best that they can.”

Other highlights

One of the highlights of the match came in the second set. After a long rally, Basham rushed to the sideline to save a ball that looked like it was going into the second row after a misaimed receive by the Cougars. WSU got the point and went up 19-13.

Timmer and fifth-year middle blocker Magda Jehlarova were brick-wall solid at the net late in the third set and had crucial blocks that helped accelerate the Cougars’ 7-0 run. Timmer finished with two total blocks and Jehlarova had five total for the match.

Up next

Washington State will continue Pac-12 competition against Arizona on Sunday at 1 p.m. in Tucson, Ariz., at the McKale Center.

Stanley Charles 'Stan' Hoyt (Oct 4, 1929 - Nov 30, 2019)

                         

Stanley Charles 'Stan' Hoyt

Wenatchee, WA

Jan 5 2020 – Wenatchee World

Stanley Charles “Stan” Hoyt, age 90, a 62-year resident of the Wenatchee area, passed away on November 30, 2019.

 

Stan was born on October 4, 1929, in Alameda, CA, to Fred and Elphie Hoyt. He received his early education in Oakland, CA, graduating from Castlemont High School in 1947, Valedictorian of his class.

 

He received a B.S. in Entomology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1951, and attended graduate school there in 1952. He was a member of Theta Chi Fraternity.

 

After serving two years in the Army, stationed in Korea with the 48th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital and studying hemorrhagic fever, he returned to coursework at Berkeley, completing a Ph.D. in 1957.

 

He married Beverley Jeanne Carpenter at Berkeley, CA, on August 6, 1955, living in Lafayette and Walnut Creek, CA, before moving to Wenatchee.

 

In 1957, Stan joined the staff at the Washington State University Tree Fruit Research Center (TFRC) in Wenatchee as a Research Entomologist. He worked in that capacity until 1982, becoming Superintendent of the Center and serving in that post until retirement, in 1993. In 1970, Stan received a Fulbright Award, spending nine months, along with his family, in Nelson, South Island, New Zealand, where he worked for the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. He was a member of the Entomological Society of America, receiving the Chemical Industries Basel- GEIGY Recognition Award (1973), and the C.W. Woodworth Award—Pacific branch (1989), also serving as President of the Pacific Branch in 1983.

 

The focus of Stan’s scholarship, sustainable integrated pest management, led to ground-breaking research investigating the disruption of biological control of spider mites by a predatory mite species in apples. At a time of crisis in the apple industry, when control of spider mite pests with pesticides was nearly useless, Stan’s research identified a predator of spider mites that was surviving in a few orchards. His subsequent research lead to a program that combined selective pesticides to control other apple pests while the predator mite provided complete control of spider mites. The program Stan developed was adopted by the Washington apple industry and laid the foundation for conservation biological control as the most successful and durable integrated biological control program in its history. Based on Stan’s research, he was recognized internationally as the “Father of Integrated Mite Management.”

 

In October of 2019, Stan was recognized for his contributions to the apple industry with the naming of the WSU TFRC Entomology building in his honor.

 

Stan was a Paul Harris Fellow and 36-year member of the Wenatchee Rotary Club, member and President of the Board of Directors of the Community Resource Center, served on the boards of the Wenatchee Valley Symphony, United Way, and the Wenatchee Valley College Foundation. He was Chair of the KFAE Public Radio advisory board which was instrumental in bringing Northwest Public Radio to Wenatchee. In honor of Stan’s volunteer service and various contributions to the apple industry, he was named Apple Citizen of the Year for 1993 by the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival.

 

In addition to his public service, Stan enjoyed music, performing with the Columbia Flute Society for almost 20 years. He and his family were also active in the Sew & So 4-H Club of Wenatchee for many years.

 

When not working or playing music, Stan could be found in the out-of-doors, spending many free hours fly fishing, hiking, and skiing in the Cascades and British Columbia. He had a keen love of insects, animals, birds, and plants of all forms and could identify most all by their animal and biological taxonomies. His other hobbies included photography, gardening, and watching sports, WSU Cougar and Seattle Seahawks football in particular. Stan and Beverley travelled extensively in their retirement years and participated in more than forty elderhostel programs around the globe.

 

Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Beverley of Wenatchee, WA; daughter, Kathleen (Mike Kentley) Hoyt; grandson, Kieran of Bend, OR; son, David (Chris) Hoyt of Pullman, WA; granddaughter, Ariana (Jon) McDonnell of Seattle, WA; brother, Jim Hoyt of Seattle, WA; and many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by daughter, Kristine Hoyt.

 

A Celebration of Life will be held at 2:00 p.m., Saturday, February 1, 2020, at the Wenatchee Golf and Country Club, 1600 Country Club Drive, East Wenatchee, WA.

 

Those wishing to honor Stan may make a charitable donation to the Stanley and Beverley Hoyt Tree Fruit Excellence Fund, Attn: Britta Nitcy, WSU CAHNRS, P.O. Box 646228, Pullman, WA 99164-6228. This fund will support teaching, graduate student research in Integrated Pest Management, and Tree Fruit Entomology at the Wenatchee Tree Fruit and Extension Center.

 

You are invited to visit his tribute online at www.HeritageMemorial Chapel.com and leave a memory. Arrangements are in the care of Heritage Memorial Chapel, East Wenatchee, WA.

 

https://www.wenatcheeworld.com/tributes/in_memoriam/stanley-charles-stan-hoyt/article_c3284b20-c90b-507b-a3e8-4b62346bbe89.html

Funnel cake, speed traps and Oregon State’s alliance with Washington State to save the Pac-12

Funnel cake, speed traps and Oregon State’s alliance with Washington State to save the Pac-12

By Bill Oram, Oregonian, Sept 11, 2023

The fate of the Pac-12 rests in the hands that handed out funnel cake on behalf of the Rotary Club at last weekend’s Palouse Empire Fair.

Washington voters elected Judge Gary Libey to the Whitman County Superior Court in 2016. He has adjudicated cases ranging from child custody to murder, rape and assault.

On Monday, the court clerk in tiny Colfax, Washington, population 2,766, asked the judge what kind of case was on the docket.

The son of a Spokane police officer and a career litigator, Libey said, “Well there’s going to be Cougars, Beavers, Huskies, Ducks, Cardinals, Golden Bears, Bruins, Trojans, Sun Devils, Wildcats, Buffaloes and Utes.”

The clerk replied: “Whoa, should I call for security?”

The Pac-12 is on trial.

Well, not in a legal sense. Not yet. But after a month of being knocked around like wheat stalks in a Palouse windstorm, Oregon State and Washington State are finally fighting back.

The path to leverage in the Beavers’ realignment battle runs directly through Libey’s courtroom, where they form an alliance of rivals with Washington State.

“There are always two sides to every story and there’s two ways of looking at everything,” Libey told a local reporter a few years back.

Two sides, maybe. But ultimately just one conclusion.

The Beavs and Cougs are seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the 10 schools that have announced plans to leave the conference from determining the fate of the Pac-12. On Monday, Libey granted a temporary restraining order preventing the board from taking any action in the meantime that is not unanimous.

Pullman, home of Washington’s land-grant university, might be the largest city in Whitman County, but Colfax is its county seat and a great place to pick up a traffic ticket — being home to one of the region’s most notorious speed traps.

Can OSU and WSU get their in-state rivals and the rest of the greedy brood to at least slow down on their way to the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC?

The two remaining schools can’t reverse the disintegration of the Pac-12. They can’t reel USC and UCLA back in or make the Utes do a U of U-turn. They can’t restore the regional rivalries that have been cast aside or bring Fox and ESPN back to the negotiating table for a better TV deal.

They are playing the cards they have.

OSU and Wazzu have been the two biggest losers in realignment. They are the forgotten pair. It makes their ongoing dilemma only more heartbreaking that both schools’ football teams are ranked in the top 25two weeks into the season.

Football has dictated realignment, but clearly not the game’s quality.

You can’t help but love Cougars coach Jake Dickert, who, in a moment of bittersweet celebration after his team upended Wisconsin on Saturday night, passionately declared, “We belong in the Power Five.”

When Oregon State travels to Pullman in two weeks for a game that has already been given a primetime slot on Fox — irony much? — both teams are likely to be undefeated. The biggest underlying question of the matchup will not be who gets the win on the field but how they can avoid further losses off of it.

The best path forward for Oregon State, short of an invitation to the Big Ten or Big 12 that nobody expects, is still to rebuild the Pac-12.

To team with WSU and use the financial resources of the conference, abandoned by the rest of their brethren, to lure universities to join them in a conference that combines the best of the Mountain West or the American.

They can’t do that if presidents from the 10 departing schools come together and make funeral arrangements for the Pac-12.

“They’re now motivated by a strong financial incentive to dissolve the Pac-12 and divide the assets,” the San Francisco-based attorney representing OSU, Eric MacMichael, argued in front of Libey on Monday.

MacMichael said one agenda item for a board meeting scheduled for Wednesday was amending bylaws that include a conflict of interest clause. He also shared that schools leaving the conference expected to have the conference cover some of their transition costs next year.

Oregon State and Washington State have already been left holding the bag. Now the departing schools want to take the bag, too?

If the Pac-12 can be saved as an entity, with valuable framework and assets, then it shouldn’t take a country judge — who said the court had no time constraints on Monday except for his 12:30 p.m. doctor’s appointment — to rule that only Oregon State and Washington State should be directing its future.

But this whole saga has, at times, taken center stage in the theater of the absurd. Including the chairman of Oregon’s board of trustees calling for the Big Ten vote from the sand trap at the Portland Golf Club.

OSU has had limited recourse throughout the realignment race, that’s for sure. There are fans who wondered loudly why the Beavers administration wasn’t taking more action to secure its fate.

This is that action.

Plus, in stacking up legal wins against the Pac-12 and the 10 émigrés, the Beavers are winning back some power in a situation in which they have largely had none.

Mark Lambert, the attorney representing the Pac-12, argued that OSU and WSU were operating out of speculation and fear and that meetings had to be held for standard business and not nefarious purposes that would harm the allies.

Maybe so.

But Libey asked the right question.

“What’s to stop those other schools from making those decisions?” he said.

Answer: Absolutely nothing until the guy who handed out funnel cake on Sunday handed down a common-sense judgment on Monday.

It’s possible the Pac-12 and the 10 soon-to-be ex-members were frustrated by the decision.

Someone should have warned them to slow down before they got to Colfax.