Are you ready for some curling?

Washington State Athletic Director Bill Moos is set to announce the addition of curling as the seventh men's varsity sport played by the Cougars. An official press conference will be held Monday at 1 p.m. at the Latah County Fairgrounds ice rink. WSU will add the sport officially in 2013, and will play a full Pac-12 slate against the conference foes that currently field curling teams (USC, Stanford, Colorado, Utah, UCLA, Oregon State and associate member for curling only, Alaska-Fairbanks).

Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement, "We welcome the addition of Washington State to curling as we try to expand our number of Olympic sports played conference-wide. We hope to have all of our member institutions field a curling team by 2015, and this is a step in the right direction." Scott added, "We've thrown another rock in the house, if you catch my drift."

Curling matches will air locally on ROOT sports and will air nationally in 2014 on the recently-announced ESPNU2 network. ROOT Sports said in a statement: "We're excited about this new partnership to bring Pac-12 sports onto television alongside the Mariners, Sounders, Mariners, Washington Husky Football!, Mariners baseball and also please watch the Mariners. Seriously though." ESPN President John Skipper said, "We can't wait to have more valuable sports programming for our new ESPNU2 network, which is a college sports network and NOT a collaboration between ESPN and the band U2. Please stop writing us e-mails asking us about that, because it's not."

It's an exciting move for WSU, one that Bill Moos called "pretty dope" in a teleconference this morning, which was also April 1st. WSU still needs to hire a coaching staff and a first recruiting class, but Moos noted that there are 34.8 million Canadians currently in existence, so it shouldn't be that hard to find some.

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Yakety Burg (via FRMariposa)

I think it's safe to say we're on cloud nine after the WSU Cougars' sweep of Cal and Stanford... and subsequent move up the standings in the Pac-12.

Faisal Aden will get a large amount of the credit for the wonderful homestand, as he should. When you score fifty-seven points on twenty-nine shots I'd say you've had a pretty reasonable couple of days at the office. Which is good, because many offices in Washington didn't have power last week.

Anyway, Nuss tweeted that he'd be writing about Aden in the near future [obligatory plug for Cougar Sports Weekly here]. So rather than write about Faden' Aden (I don't know if you know this, guys, but he's also from Somalia), I figured I'd single out the unsung hero from the California game...

Abe Lodwick.

Yes, that Abe Lodwick. I've written about Abe on a few occasions, so much so that by writing this I get to punch another hole in my Abe Lodwick storyline punch card. When you reach ten Abe Lodwick stories you get a free Abe Lodwick with a purchase of an Abe Lodwick of greater or equal value.

Lodwick was key in the second half run for the Cougars yesterday, starting the half in the place of first-half starter Charlie Enquist. Abe hit a couple of key three-pointers on his way to 12 points on 4 of 7 shooting. He added four rebounds and two assists, versus only one turnover. But there's more to it than that...

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As I'm sure many of you loyal CougCenter-ers are aware, we're big fans of the four factors here. Basketball is a complex game... but it can often be boiled down to the four core components of shooting, rebounding, turnovers and free throws. They are not all equal; as shooting is king (that's obvious to your eyes and to statisticians) and the rest follow. Still, they are all important, and excelling in one area is a great way to give your team a competitive edge.

Before our game with Cal today I'm going to bring up free throw rate, as it was absolutely key in the Cougars' 81-69 triumph over the Stanford Cardinal. Now, I have to qualify that it certainly wasn't the only thing at play, and the stats are skewed by the fact that Johnny Dawkins spent most of the final three minutes hacking any Cougar that moved (especially Marcus Capers). But that's still important because free throws are a wonderful way of comeback prevention. Meaning had the Cardinal gone absolutely nuts from behind the arc near the end of the game, the Cougars still could've won by trading 2 points for every 3 made, instead of 0 or 1 for every 3. We've lost games in the past by failing to make free throws in the final two minutes.

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Did this all really happen?

It has been a stunning several weeks for Washington State football. A rollercoaster of emotions for a program that has now completely changed its national perception.

There's a principle of advertising that Mad Men's Don Draper holds dear: If you don't like what's being said about you, change the conversation.

Consider it changed.

Mike Leach was my guy. I tried to be as toned down about celebrating this as I could, because I - like so many other Coug fans - truly wanted Wulff to succeed. A winning Wulff was Plan A, a coaching change was Plan B. Still, when my faith was tested, Leach was the number one replacement in my mind if - and only if - Wulff was relieved of his duties. There were times when I felt things might not work out for Wulff: after the Oklahoma State blowout last season, the nail-biter win over Montana State and the crushing defeat to Oregon State in Seattle this year. Publicly I never wanted to be a guy flat out calling for Wulff's head. Privately I had my doubts. Mike Leach was my answer, without hesitation, when my friends and family would ask who might replace Coach Wulff if he was shown the door. In my back pocket was a campaign to get Mike Leach as our next head coach if and when the real expert - Bill Moos - decided it was time to move on.

And so I felt guilty when Paul Wulff was let go, even though my own personal feelings had nothing to do with the change. Maybe somehow I had mentally willed this to happen, like a be-careful-what-you-wish-for sort of thing. Not that I was wishing for Wulff's demise, but wishing for Leach to someday find his way to Pullman. Of course, for the latter to happen, the former had to, and a genuinely good guy would be forced out of the job. That was the problem with the whole scenario, and it's why I felt guilty. I many ways I still do. Maybe we were truly a year away from Paul Wulff succeeding on the field and becoming the head coach we always dreamed of. But the problem is in this business that there's only so many years where you can be one year away.

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I do this every year, because I like to think someday we might actually live to see something like this.

The rules:

-8 teams
-Must be a conference champion (or Top-25 ranked independent) to qualify
-All 6 AQ conference champions are in
-Top 2 non-AQ conference teams are in (based on average rank in coaches/AP polls)
-Teams seeded 1 through 8 by average rank in coach/AP polls
-Higher seeded teams host playoff games
-Final two teams meet in national championship at neutral location; the other six receive BCS bowl berths

(8) West Virginia (Big East)
(1) LSU (SEC)

(5) Clemson (ACC)
(4) Wisconsin (Big Ten)

(6) TCU (At-large/MWC)
(3) Oregon (Pac-12)

(7) Southern Miss (at-large/C-USA)
(2) Oklahoma State (Big XII)

This is the first year where I think this system might actually be a little controversial. First off, Alabama is nowhere to be found (same with Stanford, Arkansas, etc.) because I still hold the belief that if you can't win your conference championship you shouldn't be allowed to win a national championship. This year, however, that rule did something weird to the non-AQ teams. That is: not one, but two non-AQ teams are ranked above non-AQ teams that made the bracket. Boise State is ranked higher than TCU, and Houston is ranked above Southern Miss. But So. Miss beat Houston head-to-head, just as TCU beat Boise head-to-head. So in this case I think my conference championship rule worked out fairly.

It still cracks me up that the Big East is the #8 seed.

The beauty of the Apple Cup is that it always means something, even when the result doesn't change much of the season's outcome for either team.

The Cougars of Washington State come into this game at 4-7; guaranteed at least a share of last place in the Pac-12 North. The Washington Huskies are 6-5 - already guaranteed a Bowl appearance and playing to try and lock up a winning record and potentially a spot in a higher-profile Bowl.

None of this matters as much as the fact that the winner of this game gets bragging rights over its in-state rival. You can say this isn't important, but it is. It always is. A win in this game grants some immunity from smack talk from your rival co-workers, friends, family... even random people on the street. This practice is somewhat ridiculous considering us fans have absolutely no involvement in the outcome on the field, but nevertheless our association with the University pulls us in anyway. We actually genuinely feel bad about losing this game, even though sitting in the stands or on a couch in no way helps or harms our team in terms of the final score.

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Turnovers matter!

This is one of those games that makes you want to single out the players who led to our turnover-ignited demise. The leaders were Reggie Moore with 6, Faisal Aden with 5 and Brock Motum with 4. Mike Ladd had 2 in only 13 minutes of play, which puts him right on Reggie's pace in terms of turnover rate. Motum gets a tiny bit of slack from me for being a big man. No one expects a high assist to turnover ratio from a post player.

One thing yet to be determined is if Oklahoma's defense is just really good, or if our offense was really bad at handing the ball over. Since many of the turnovers were unforced errors, I'd bank on the latter. I'd also keep my fingers crossed that this is a one-game meltdown versus the beginning of a long-term trend. Ugh, please let it be that.

Right now, we really don't have enough of a sample size to make any sweeping determinations about Cougar players this year. We do know about our returning players, though, and so we know a few things. One, Reggie has always had a bit of a turnover problem; the difference is his freshman year he dished out enough assists to make up for it. Faisal Aden has to score efficiently to be worthwhile... and while he kinda sorta did last night, he absolutely cannot add five turnovers to the risk he already poses of ending possessions with bad shots.

There's one thing that makes me believe this game was more of an aberration: The Cougars were the 64th best team in the country at avoiding turnovers last season, in terms of turnover rate. That's great for an up-tempo offense like Ken Bone's. We may see some early bumps in the road this season as the Cougars work to integrate players who either weren't playing much or weren't playing at all last season: DaVonte Lacy, Charlie Enquist, Mike Ladd... even Brock Motum didn't see a ton of minutes last fall.

I tend to think this is temporary. The team will improve. Question is: how much?

In a story plagued with unsettling thoughts, I had another one this morning as I watched Penn State get set to take on Nebraska.

This one - like many of the others - has nothing to do with Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky is the only black-and-white villain in this story. He's the criminal. He's the person who should never experience a day of freedom as long as he lives. Everyone else is in trouble for negligence, which, in this case, was a desire to believe that something too awful for words could have happened on their campus. With guys like Paterno, there's so many shades of gray. We don't know what exactly he was told. What exactly he did. What on Earth he was thinking. I highly suggest reading Joe Posnanski's piece here if you don't understand what I mean. Regardless, Paterno got fired - well, most everyone got fired (or will be) - and we can only hope there aren't even more disturbing details to come out of this. Sadly, there probably will be.

My thought this morning, however, was about the fans. Being a fan is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You root for a team, the team wins, and you feel happy. But it's not just you. When you start to be engulfed by fandom, other people start to associate you with your team. Your parents say "hey, how about those Cougs" after a big win... or you get something fun to talk about with your pro-WSU comrades at work. Or, better yet, your Husky co-workers stay quiet. After a tough loss, people will actually apologize to you. Think about how silly that sounds. And yet, it gives you a little bit of relief to know that people are aware your team lost, aware you feel crummy about it and want you to feel better. Suddenly the meaningless game of people throwing a spheroid around on some grass actually means something to you not only on a personal level, but a social one as well.

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Cougar football gettin' you down? Come for the cure:

Cougs pound Warriors! 11/5 (via WSUCougarAthletics)

WSU was an 88-41 winner over the Lewis-Clark State Warriors in exhibition Saturday. This was an encouraging result for a couple of reasons. One, for NAIA Lewis-Clark, this game actually counts (don't quote me on that in case something has changed recently). Second, the Cougs blew out an inferior opponent - which generally correlates with a brighter future than a close upset of a superior team. But, perhaps most importantly, they won easily without Reggie Moore, Abe Lodwick and Faisal Aden, who were all banged up.

Yes, there are concerns. For example, it's looking increasingly more possible that Marcus Capers may end up leading the team in defensive rebounding this year. It's still very sketchy as to whether this team can rebound efficiently in the frontcourt.

But for now, focus on the positives: DaVonte Lacy with 21 points. Mike Ladd with 14. Dexter Kernich-Drew's sweet shooting stroke. Will DiIorio with a Capers TM. Patrick Simon looks bigger, too, I swear.

For the Cougs it's now all about getting healthy and getting in shape for Gonzaga on November 14th.

This doesn't feel like a big game, but it is.

Maybe it's because WSU/California isn't really a heated rivalry. Maybe it's that we're staring down yet another Cougar road game. Maybe it's the fact this game will be played at a baseball stadium.

This just doesn't have the feel of a marquee matchup. California is paired with the Cougars in the Pac-12 North cellar... both sitting at 1-4. Both teams barely squeaked by Colorado on the road and are nursing slim bowl hopes following a rough start to conference play. Cal basically needs to win their next two, against WSU and Oregon State. WSU has to win 3 of 4 against Cal, Utah, ASU and Washington.

Looking at it from a desperation standpoint, it is a huge game. Possibly an elimination game if you assume neither team will defeat a ranked opponent the rest of the way.

Unfortunately, this isn't a setting where a moral victory will feel worthwhile for WSU. This is a game where anything short of a win could be another nail in the coffin of the Cougars' bowl hopes. This is a victory this football team needs, and needs badly.

I'd love to find some interceding storyline here. I'd like to find a way to think a heartbreaking come-from-behind-but-fall-just-short loss could be considered a pyrrhic victory for the program. But I can't. This is a bottom-line business, and a bottom-line game. This is a game best summarized by a legendary figure from across the bay in Oakland.

Just win, baby.

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4.1%.

Those were the odds, in percentage form, that Fangraphs gave the St. Louis Cardinals of winning Thursday night, after Ryan Theriot struck out early in the bottom of the ninth.

At a point in the life of any sports fan, you start to ask yourself why. Why am I still watching this game? This season? This team? Isn't there something better I should be doing with my time? [The probable answer to the last question is yes: like laundry, or mowing the lawn, or feeding the fish]

For the Coug fan, the question is: why am I watching a game against Oregon that we have virtually no chance of winning?

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Someday, when you're watching Andrew Luck tear apart an opposing NFL defense, you can remember that his collegiate journey started in Pullman.

It's true. I remember being in the stands for the 2009 opener - it's the one the Cougars lost 39-13 - and taking solace in the fact that at least we got beat by a young quarterback with one heck of an arm. I was surprised at how savvy he was for a freshman. How he didn't make mistakes... even if he didn't always hit receivers right on the chest.

Actually, truth be told, I was just happy Luck beat out Tavita Pritchard for the starting quarterback job for Stanford. I would've hated to see the Cougars lose at home to the nephew of Jack Thompson. Nevertheless, Luck was impressive in his first career start, even if the numbers weren't particularly stunning: 11 of 23, 193 yards, 1 touchdown, no interceptions.

It's funny to think that the Cougars would kill to see that kind of line from Luck on Saturday. Last year Luck tossed 3 touchdowns (although on a surprisingly paltry 190 yards) in the Cardinal's 10-point win over WSU that was nowhere near as close as the final score indicates. Luck was shockingly adept at the position right from the start of his NCAA career; over the past three years he's turned into a complete pro's pro of a quarterback. He could have been the number one pick in the NFL draft last year, and he likely will be this year. I found it a little funny that Ryan Leaf's book came out the week we play Luck. Leaf was the last Pac-12 quarterback I saw in person that just seemed like an absolute can't-miss prospect at the next level.

Our society is obsessed with potential, and as such Andrew Luck's jersey for the NFL team he plays for will undoubtedly be the highest selling in the league the week it goes on the shelf. It doesn't matter if he plays like Peyton Manning. If he succeeds then Andrew Luck will be a self-fulfilling prophecy of the most exciting kind. He'll be an icon. He'll be in commercials for Snickers, McDonalds and numerous other products that could lead to what we in the medical field call "the diabeetus". If he's awful, oh, well then he just goes down as the biggest bust in the history of the league. No wonder he's sticking around for his final year in Palo Alto.

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Of course it's Rick Neuheisel.

The Washington State Cougars play their most important football game in years on Saturday. The game gives them the opportunity to improve to 4-1 on the season. A record which would put them in prime position for Bowl eligibility and a key stretch run with a potentially-healthy Jeff Tuel at the helm. It's the kind of game the Cougars need to win on the road if they want to prove they are back to respectability.

Standing in the way? A desperate UCLA program under the man who haunted our dreams as the coach of the Washington Huskies, Rick Neuheisel. Neuheisel's coaching job with the Bruins is in jeopardy, more so than any other leader of a Pac-12 team... and every win becomes precious as he tries to avoid unemployment. This, of course, is a strange position for him to be in. Neuheisel was a wildly successful coach at Colorado, then Washington, before losing his job in Montlake over participation in a NCAA tournament gambling pool. A legal battle ensued and Neuheisel was mildly exonerated after costing the taxpayers of Washington even more money in legal fees. And, as you know, our state is flush with cash so everyone lived happily ever after.

Neuheisel was Kryptonite to WSU teams during his tenure with the Huskies (and I guess kind of with UCLA as well). The Cougs would lose to him when they were underdogs. The Cougs would lose to him when they were favorites. At home. On the road. It didn't matter. Rick Neuheisel summoned the dark side of the force as he often does and found new, exciting and absolutely heart-wrenching ways to beat his cross-state rival. We won't go into detail.

Part of my excitement for this weekend's game stems from the fact that we get a chance to exonerate some of those demons on the way back to the upper tier of the standings. These opportunities are rare but you have to enjoy them. It's why we rushed the field after the 2004 Apple Cup. It's why I was personally standing up and jumping in Spokane Arena when WSU basketball beat Chris Hernandez and Stanford in 2005 (if you remember those times you'll know why. I was also probably the only one that excited since Spokane Arena crowds are... underwhelming).

When you get to bust up a streak, beat a conference foe or potentially get a head coach fired*, well, those are the moments you come to cherish in sports.

*-Don't worry, I can think of a couple million reasons Rick will be o.k. financially without a job.

Then again, Rick Neuheisel's job security is nowhere near as fun or exciting to talk about as a 4-1 Cougar football team.

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I've been racking my brain trying to find a storyline to cover for this Saturday's game.

The more I thought about it... That is, the further I zoomed out and began looking at the big picture, the obvious one appeared.

Saturday is Washington State's first game in the Pac-12.

It's taken some getting used to. I have to think twice now before saying the conference's name because if I just do it without thinking, the words "Pac 10" come out. And then it becomes "Pac-10... er, I mean 12". It's unnatural. We've spent the better part of our lives, heck, all of our lives if you were born after 1978, calling it that. We've railed against the awful, awful Pac-10 refs, the horrible Pac-10 television contract and the ridiculous Pac-10 tournament at the Staples Center every single year.

So it's only natural we're getting used to a two in the second digit instead of a zero. We have to get used to Colorado and Utah, too. Utah is easy, in that I've always been pretty neutral to them. I've only been to Utah by way of the Salt Lake airport... although I'm absolutely going back someday if for no other reason than to see Glen Canyon and all the amazing things the state has to offer in its backcountry. Utah is safe, somewhat isolated and somewhat boring depending on the area you're in. Which basically makes it like Spokane. That's familiar to me. Likewise, their football and basketball teams have stayed a respectable distance from teams that I like, and therefore I have always found the Utes fun underdogs to pull for. They've never really been much of a "rival".

Colorado is different. It's a state I've always wanted to visit but never have since I was a little kid. It's equally wondrous in terms of nature and it features a big city that's more of an actual big city (Sorry, SLC, although I doubt you'll take offense to that). It's a more progressive state culturally (in parts). I've never had any trouble with the University's basketball team, but I do have a beef with the football squad.

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One play doesn't win or lose a football game. Or change the direction of a program. Still, you could argue that last year's failure by Cal to stop Chris Polk at the goal line on the final play of the game allowed Washington to 1) go on to beat WSU and become Bowl eligible 2) beat Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl and 3) Sell the Husky program as a "program on the rise"... rather than a program that was struggling to make it back to relevancy after 0-12.

Of course, little of this matters to WSU. But on a day like today where the Cougs are off, thoughts naturally turn to the state's other team and some good ol' fashioned rooting against your rival.

Relevant to your sports interests today:

12:30 p.m.
California at Washington
Colorado at Ohio State
UCLA at Oregon State
1:00 p.m.
Mariners at Rangers (why?)
7:15 p.m.
USC at Arizona State
Oregon at Arizona
7:30 p.m.
Sounders at Whitecaps

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The Tailgater's Guide to Cougar Football is a weekly series designed to prepare you for the upcoming week's matchup - both on and off the field.

Welcome to the Sterk Bowl!

Washington State faces off against San Diego State this week... and, by extension, former athletic director Jim Sterk.

It's weird to have a legacy placed on hold, but that's exactly what's happened with Sterk. How we look upon his tenure as AD of the Cougars lies largely on the two coaching decisions he made near the end of it. The first is Paul Wulff; the homegrown Cougar product that will continue to look better and better if Sterk's Aztecs lose on Saturday. The other is Ken Bone - the coach of a basketball team in the midst of a rebuilding effort and a roster that currently boasts 44 guards and 3 forward/centers [estimated numbers]. Both hiring decisions were informed, calculated, and nearly unanimously supported by the fanbase when they were made.

Still, we don't know how they will turn out. Wulff was Sterk's chance to resurrect the football program after the Bill Doba Era. Doba was the ultimate hire of good intentions. He was the sensible hire to make after Mike Price left, even if Doba was reluctant to accept the promotion. This recent Seattle Times article outlines the primary (and tragic) reason it didn't, and when everyone close to the program finally noticed the ship was taking on water it was too late to prevent it from sinking. Wulff may be Sterk's redemption, or his second act of good intentions that didn't quite turn out the way we wanted it to. Right now it's starting to lean to the former, which is good news all around.

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The tailgater's guide comes to you a little bit late this week. You see, I'm on vacation in the great white north of Canada. As such, I'm moving at a slower pace than usual. It also happens that I've had the impeccable luck of my vacation week aligning with the coastal Northwest's one week of summertime weather. Believe me, I couldn't be happier. But you should feel lucky, too. This gives us adults a prime opportunity to laugh at all the kids who just went back to school this week. That's what you young bucks get for all your free time and breaks and summers. It's karma, really.

All the brightness and optimism swarming around us outside align well with Cougar football at the moment. Well, minus Jeff Tuel's injury, obviously. Week 2 feels like another start to the season. This time, it's for real, against an opponent with enough talent on their roster to compete with the Cougars. And yet, there has to be a little bit of fear surrounding the UNLV game. Can Lobbestael run the offense competently while Tuel's out? Will the defense continue its climb toward respectability? This week, we come closer to finding out.

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The Tailgater's Guide to Cougar Football is a weekly series, published every Thursday, designed to prepare you for the upcoming week's matchup - both on and off the field.

[credit Cougfan2003; YouTube]

Cougar football is back.

You might be wondering why I chose a highlight reel from 2002 for the first Tailgater's Guide of 2011. It's simple, really: this is what the are Cougars playing for. Not the Rose Bowl, mind you, that's a little further on down the road. This year's Cougars are playing to get back to this level. To be competitive again. To take the next step toward being a contender.

The last two seasons saw our fanbase entering the fall only expecting a modest improvement at best. Two to three wins - and progress - were our expected outcomes in 2009 and 2010. Now, all of a sudden, six win predictions don't seem all that crazy. Improbable? Maybe. I stand by my prediction of 4-8 this season, as I think it's the most realistic outcome. But even realistic predictions don't always predict reality. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction; sometimes your expectations can be blown away by a team on a mission.

Excuse me if I've become a bit of an optimist. I've been watching the Sounders quite a lot lately, which is basically sports detox from the losing ways of all the other Seattle sports teams (minus the Seahawks, kind of). I've become open to the idea that the kind of team you see in the above YouTube video can come back to life. The school you see in those pictures can become the school you see on the field in the present. It's not going to be an instant turnaround, but it's coming sooner rather than later. The worst is behind us.

The one thing you can't say is that a return to glory is impossible. It's been done before. 2002 was proof of that.

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Let's sneak in a COTY vote during this final week before Cougar football.

Jane LaRiviere is the wildly successful WSU rowing coach.

Larry Scott is our Pac-12 commissioner and purveyor of fine, modern architecture. He is not a Coug, but $20 million a year kinda buys your way in.

Let's keep rolling.

Klay Thompson, despite being the two seed, has become my favorite to win COTY 2011. Don't get me wrong; I'm not writing off June Daugherty. It's just that something tells me that June can be the odds-on favorite for COTY 2012 or 2013 by getting the Cougar women into the NCAA tournament. That would be a feat nothing short of remarkable considering the program's past futility. The women appear to be on their way.

However, as far as men's basketball is concerned, Klay Thompson will go down as one of the all-time greats in WSU history. The question remains: can we as a fanbase value his talent over his team's win-loss record? That, I think, will determine whether Klay goes the distance in this tournament.

Polls open below.

I dread this matchup.

See, Bill Moos was a perfect number one seed when I drafted up this bracket back in May. But how can you vote against Shawn Swartz? The WSU Track and Field star who is bravely fighting leukemia is about as inspirational as they come. We could be looking at the classic 8-1 tournament upset that causes you to trash your brackets.

I work with chemotherapy on a quasi-daily basis, and sometimes when I head up to the infusion suite I wonder what I feels like to be on the other end. To be fighting a disease that could realistically kill you... to have no idea what the future holds (positive or negative)... to take medicine that is basically going to trash any sense of normalcy in your body. The thing is: I can't even comprehend what it's like. The only thing I can really know is that I hope it's never me, and I really really hope it's never someone I love. All I can really do as I take medicine up the stairs is take some shred of solace in knowing that I'm a small part of the battle against it.

Before you vote, though, remember that Coug of the Year and being an exceptional individual aren't mutually exclusive. Shawn Swartz doesn't need to win Coug of the Year to be validated as a hero. Voting for Bill Moos doesn't mean you love cancer, nor should it make you feel guilty. It just means you think Bill Moos fits whatever set of metrics you prefer in determining the most important Cougar Athletic figure of the year. Moos has kept our football fanbase together through some of the worst seasons in program history, and has almost 100% of us in the Cougar Nation believing the future will be markedly better than the present. In all sports. That's not an accomplishment to take lightly. It's because of Bill Moos that more people like Shawn Swartz will get to carry out their dreams in a WSU uniform.

With that in mind, let's take it to the poll. May the best man win.

It's time for Coug of the Year to ramp things up. I promised to have a COTY champion by kickoff of the football season, and we're going to make it happen.

So, with that in mind, let's get French.

This is not only a battle between different sports, but a battle of the sexes as well. La is a feminine pronoun in french; Le is the masculine. Jane LaRiviere is the most successful Cougar sports coach no one talks about. LeAndre Daniels has proven to be a fighter and a source of ongoing inspiration for the WSU football team. To the rundown:

(6) Jane LaRiviere

Washington State, which - I'm obligated to remind you - is about a half hour from a major body of water, finished 12th in this year's NCAA rowing championships. WSU's second varsity eight and varsity four each placed tenth in their individual races. In most revenue sports fans would murder for a Top 10 national finish; in Cougar rowing it's not that big of a shock at all. At least not anymore.

Of course, the Pac-12 will continue to be a juggernaut. The conference placed three teams in the top five overall, and the Cougs were one of five Pac-10 teams to place at the NCAA championships. Still, it's nothing short of incredible that the Cougars are finishing ahead of both major conference opponents (Michigan, Clemson) and traditional Ivy League powers (Harvard, Dartmouth). 17 members of the team earned Pac-10 All-Academic honors.

Jane is the the most successful coach currently roaming the sidelines (shorelines?) at WSU today. Just please don't tell anyone. We'd like to actually keep a coach of her caliber.

(11) LeAndre Daniels

I always appreciated that the TV version of Friday Night Lights featured a stunning, life-altering injury to one of the team's players. Wait, wait. I don't mean appreciate as in I "liked" someone getting injured. I just mean that I liked how realistic the show was about it. Football is fun... but it can also be a dangerous, brutal sport. A sport that injures. A sport where you can be flying around the field one minute and lying in agony on the turf the next. Promising careers get cut short. Seasons are lost. It's not just football, it's almost every contact sport. Ask Steve Moore. Ask Steve Zakuani. Or LeAndre Daniels.

It's good that serious accidents don't happen often. But they still happen too often to good people, and some people are just more unlucky than others. After redshirting in 2008, Daniels' 2009 season came to a close with a broken leg in the second game of the year against Hawai'i. In 2010 a freak neck injury in practice that was thought to be minor turned out to be a fracture of the C1 vertebrae. That one would be more than just a season-ending injury. Daniels would have to call it a career. The risk of further damage to his spine was just too great to justify playing again.

Nevertheless, Daniels remains an inspiration to the entire Cougar defense, including his roommate Tyree Toomer. Toomer mentioned to Cougfan.com in July that LeAndre was out of the neck brace and continuing to improve.

It's a shame Daniels never had a decent chance to showcase his talent on the field. He was still honorable mention All-Academic for the Pac-10 in 2009.

I can't believe I doubted Larry Scott for a moment.

Earlier in the day, Jon Wilner of Mercury-News fame was reporting the Pac-12 could be partnering with Time Warner Cable for their upcoming television network. My reaction was: meh.

Now I don't have anything in particular against Time Warner. In fact, I was jumping for joy when they replaced Adelphia as the cable provider in Pullman. Not because I liked Time Warner; no, it was because I hated Adelphia's commericals with a passion few can emulate or truly understand unless you lived in Pullman circa five years ago. Time Warner was a change, and is also most certainly your standard cable company. I mean that in that they provide you TV, and in exchange your customer service experience is almost wholly dependent on luck of the draw. Sure, they'll try to make you pay a lot for your favorite channels, but the dishes do that too. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. Overall, I'm pretty neutral when it comes to TWC.

But Time Warner for the Pac-12? Where's the splash? The excitement? Weren't Google and Apple in the mix? Doesn't Larry Scott always push the envelope on these things?

Well, sure enough, he did.

Continue reading this post »

COTY keeps on truckin', with a potential upset special. This one should get interesting.

(7) June Daugherty

I guess it's darkest before dawn, huh?

For those of you who don't follow Cougar women's basketball closely, I'll fill you in. On January 6th, the women's basketball program had essentially confirmed my long-held belief that it is cursed. The Cougs' loss to Oregon put them at 0-3 in conference and a horrific 2-13 overall. This included the downright travishamockery of a 77-38 loss to UC Davis (later a 16 seed in the NCAA tournament... but c'mon).

The Cougs would then catch fire (as much fire as a maligned program can ignite)... going on to win three of their next four in Pac-10 play, and six of their next ten. That might not seem exceptional, but consider for a moment that the Cougars had only won six conference games in a season one other time this millennium (2000-01). Also consider that from Fall 2001 to Spring 2005 the Cougars only won five Pac-10 games. Total. This program has been to depths that modern science once thought unreachable. Now, finally, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. And it's all thanks to June Daugherty.

Oh, and her replacement at the UW? Ask a Husky fan about how that went.

(10) Zack Williams

The 203rd pick in the NFL Draft, and WSU's only player to hear his name called in New York. As football is still king in college athletics, I fully expect this to be a 7-10 upset in Williams' favor. It is quite strange, though, that our one and only draft selection this year would also come from the unit that caused a good deal of our troubles that last three seasons. Let's hope the next few years feature more Zack Williamses and less [insert underperforming lineman here].

Now that the lockout's over, there's another Coug playing at football's highest level. Never a bad thing.

Via Ben Golliver

Sadly, he only goes partway. Much like the American women were denied their dream in Frankfurt, we were all denied the first full-on truffle shuffle in World Cup history.

Nevertheless, Cougar Nation applauds your moxie and your boldness to do what few young men would dare. Play on, player.

If you didn't see the game, or are in the too-cool-for-school sexist mode of "womens sports suck lol", you missed out on one of the greatest finals in World Cup history (men's or women's). And it was an absolute stomach punch for the Americans. Twice. I liked our coach's tactics, but both times after going up a goal we failed to pressure the Japanese at midfield, essentially playing the soccer version of a prevent defense. And, everyone, what does the prevent defense do? It prevents you from winning. Sigh. Let's not even talk about the disaster that was our penalty kicks.

Be glad it was classy, fundamentally sound Japan, and not Brazil. My typing that sentence literally caused Marta to dive to the ground 3,000 miles away from me. She is now rolling around in feigned agony.

I had to go to Harry Potter afterwards, and then I'm headed to Lakefair tonight, to lift my spirits.

But back to the moment .giffed above. This was the reaction from inside the room.

"Hey, a Coug shirt!! Look!!"

"Ohhhhhhhhhh...."

[awkward silence]

And, my favorite response of the day, from EDSBS mastermind and SBN's very own Spencer Hall:

@edsbs: Of course the fat kid had a Wazzu shirt. By law, they are at every sporting event anywhere around the world.

Undefeated fans indeed.

COTY rolls on. Our next matchup features the man bringing bushels of money to WSU, and a young man who had to leave the school to make some of his own.

(3) Larry Scott

[click to animate]

Larry is our first non-Coug candidate for Coug of the Year. Nevertheless, when a conference commissioner spearheads a media rights contract that is going to pay little Washington State somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million a year, you can buy your way into the competition.

Larry Scott is everything Tom Hansen wasn't. Innovative. Relentless. The SEC and Big Ten no longer show us how to do business... the Pac-12 operates on its own playing field and if you don't like it we'll come and take one of your schools away. Like you, Colorado. Utah? Why not. We almost got Texas, too, had Texas been a University with any real guts and not just an institution leveraging a bigger piece of the pie from the rest of its suddenly smaller (and easier to win) conference.

Never mind all that. When the dust settled from realignment, Scott still pulled in a record-breaking deal for the conference even before working out the details of a Pac-12 television network. Would Tom Hansen be courting Google and Apple as possible operators for a conference-network-of-the-future? I think we all know the answer.

(14) DeAngelo Casto

I feel I've reached closure with determining Klay Thompson's legacy. I felt his jump to the NBA was the right one to make, and his career at WSU was as remarkable individually as you'll find -- albeit a bit underwhelming for the team as a whole.

With Casto, I'm not sure how I feel. He was faced with a tough decision to make, and made it. But there's always going to be that what if. Not just for fans; I'm sure DeAngelo will be wondering the same as he watches the NCAA season from afar next year. What if his NBA stock doesn't rise while he's in Europe? Would he have been better off playing on home soil to a larger audience of scouts? We'll never know. Could he have been the one to lead the Cougs back to the promised land of the NCAA tournament? Not anymore.

Still, this nomination is about what he accomplished while at WSU. And for three years, DeAngelo Casto was a beast. The motor behind our team's defense - and often the offense - Casto never lacked intensity and never made a game dull. His numbers speak for themselves, but his energy went beyond that. My favorite thing about Casto was how he was the first player under either Bennett that actively wanted to get the crowd fired up. Ivory Clark and Jeff Varem were big men who often fed off the crowd, but they rarely tried to interact with it the way Casto did.

"He's screaming his own name!", someone near me in the ZZU CRU randomly yelled during his freshman year. Sure enough, when I looked down at the court, he was. I'm thinking that's how I'll remember DeAngelo.

The polls are open below.

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On we go through the 2011 COTY Bracket!

(2) Klay Thompson

When we last left Coug of the Year, Jeshua Anderson's first round matchup came to us shortly after his third NCAA 400-meter hurdles championship in four years. Now we find Klay Thompson's name called on the eve of his NBA Draft selection. I'm not doing it intentionally, but I seem to be stacking the deck against our lower seeds.

It's great to be excited about the NBA draft for reasons other than Bill Simmons' annual draft diary. And with the downfall of Steven A. Smith, we lost the greatest thing about Steven A. Smith's NBA draft coverage - the Steven A. Smith Heckling Society of Gentlemen. ESPN has tried, but the entertainment value and the drama of the Association's draft have consistently failed to match the NFL's product in recent years. Needless to say, I haven't payed much attention to my television on draft night since waiting through the second round for Kyle Weaver's name to be called.

I know many of us, myself included, wanted Klay to play out his senior season, but I've always held a certain belief about players declaring for the draft early. That belief is: If you are confident you'll be a lottery pick, you should go. Period. Plain and simple. Your stock can usually only go down from the lottery in your final year(s) of college (hey, Jeremy Pargo!) and being projected in the lottery means you're also guaranteed to be a first rounder, which in turn brings guaranteed first round money. If you're borderline first round, don't even bother keeping your name in the draft. Finish college, because a slip to the second round means you lose the guaranteed cash as well as an opportunity to make yourself more marketable by dominating the college ranks during your final season.

This is why Klay Thompson made the right call, and Isaiah Thomas most certainly did not. At least from my viewpoint.

How will we remember Klay? I think I'll always remember his individual game fondly. One of the best to ever play for Washington State; arguably the greatest, given how popular and how skilled the game is today. Still, there's a bittersweet feeling about his time as a Cougar. The team never made a NCAA Tournament in his three years, and the marijuana arrest provides a cloud of scrutiny over his final year of school, not to mention his draft stock. It really shouldn't, though. It seems obvious to me Klay isn't some closet stoner; he's a smart kid who worked hard on and off the court and just made one dumb mistake like thousands of other young people have. Klay's redemption came from his gutsy apology to the crowd on Senior night, and then a win in his final game in Pullman over Northwestern. A victory that sent WSU to Madison Square Garden for the semifinals of the NIT.

That NIT tournament run was such a fitting microcosm of the Klay Thompson era - a wonderful ride that just never managed to end the way we all wanted it to.

(15) Reid Forrest

Believe it or not, we really like Reid Forrest here at CougCenter.

Let's set aside the hyperbole for a moment, and just focus on how ridiculously outstanding Forrest was at his job at WSU.

Over 40 yards per punt every year. Over 45 as a senior. We'll round up and call it three (!) 3,000 yard punting seasons. An 84 yard punt! You can easily make the argument he's the best to ever play the position at WSU. And the only reason there's an argument to begin with is because Kyle Basler summoned the punting gods (and possibly the actual God) to do his bidding against Texas in the Holiday Bowl.

Here's to you, Reid. We saw way too much of you these last four years, but thank God you at least made watching all of your punts enjoyable.

Continue reading this post »

Sometimes, timing is everything.

Full bracket here... but I think it's safe to say this was advantageous timing for Jeshua Anderson's name to be called in the 5/12 COTY matchup.

(5) Jeshua Anderson

Three-time NCAA Champion. Four-time Pac-10 Champion.

Anderson's only real hurdle to representing Cougar Nation in London is the fact he's American. It's true. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics the U.S. swept the medal podium in the men's 400-meter hurdles. 18 of the 24 gold medalists in the event's Olympic history are American. As our own Mark Sandritter pointed out, ten men in the world ran sub-49 second races in 2011. Six of them were American. I won't be able to even look at the TV when Jeshua is up at the Olympic trials... I'll be far too nervous. One stumble, one little mistake, one clip of the gate could mean he falls short of his dream. Only three hurdlers can make the U.S. olympic team. Odds are any of the three could take gold.

I suggest Jeshua take the easy way out, and immediately start filing paperwork for dual citizenship in Estonia.

(12) Paul Wulff

I'm still upset about EA Sports giving Washington State a "1" Prestige rating. Notre Dame and Michigan got a 5 despite the fact they haven't been legitimate national title contenders in years. Northwestern got a 3. Duke even got a 2. Don't tell me this is about what a school's done recently. SMU has a rating of 3. EA apparently remembers the Pony Express, but not a school that played in two Rose Bowls in the last fifteen years? Oh, and at our very, very worst - we still beat SMU. A SMU team that would go on to play in a Bowl. (note to my extended family that went to SMU: sorry)

Two things irk me about how WSU is viewed on a national - or even regional - level. The first is that we've become the "insert crappy school here" in jokes about college football. The second is that we aren't viewed as a big market (read: Seattle) team even though we technically should be considered a part of it. That second one is not really relevant to this discussion, though.

What is relevant is that WSU had become a laughingstock. A punchline. The national media that didn't respect us much to begin with turned on us even more, and the average college football fan probably doesn't remember this program used to be one of the strongest in the country.

Paul Wulff was about to become the fall guy for all of this. Right or wrong, he was on the hot seat because WSU football was incredibly non-competitive for the better part of two years. And then one game changed everything. EA Sports probably thinks this never happened, but on a cool fall day the Washington State Cougars blew out the Oregon State Beavers on the road. It wasn't a fluke, or an overtime game... the Cougs just punched OSU in the mouth and won convincingly. By seventeen.

You can say Wulff deserves the blame for our loss of prestige, and you would be somewhat right about that. But Paul Wulff makes the COTY ballot because what he's still been able to do despite our "prestige" being in the tank. While the team has struggled, he's reeled in recruiting classes with the likes of Jeff Tuel and Marquess Wilson. He's convinced good players to be excited about building something rather than just winning in their freshman year. When it looked like the Cougs had nothing to play for except the Apple Cup, they came out in Reser Stadium with their arms linked and shocked the entire conference.

Paul Wulff could be considered part of our PR problem... but don't be too shocked if he also ends up being the solution.