COUGARS

So it's New Year's Day, 2009. How many of you out there wondered if you would ever see this day? No, I don't mean at 11:23 last night when you couldn't remember if the person you were talking with through a self-induced haze was your cousin or the receptionist. No, I mean when you were young. For a certain age, 2009 seemed like science fiction, sort of like Armageddon, something that was possible but you were sure would never come.

But it's here, 2009 I mean, not Armageddon. And it's filled with WSU news. OK, not filled per se, but there is more than you might expect. So read on.
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• With the Pac-10 basketball season starting for the Cougars on Saturday, we concentrated, in the paper, on the showdown with the Huskies. I had this story about the recent win streak plus a couple notes.

• The Times and the News Tribune looked around the conference, with the Bob Condotta's story and this piece from Don Ruiz, respectively. The Times' Jerry Brewer also looks at Lorenzo Romar and this year's Huskies.

• It's still football season, however, with Oregon State lifting the conference to 4-0 in bowl games with a boring, if dominating, 3-0 Sun Bowl win over the Big East's Pitt. The best piece I found was this story in the Oregonian.

Today is also the Rose Bowl, which happens to fall on New Year's Day again this year. It's funny. I grew up about two miles from the Rose Parade. Yet I only attended it once and that occurred when I was so young, I can't remember. Though my mom did film the whole parade once on her brand new Bell and Howell color movie camera. Except she had her thumb over the lens. Cost my dad about $100 to see five rolls of my mom's blurred thumb obscuring the floats.

The game, that's a different story. I remember the 2-yard wide splits on the Stanford O-line as they beat Michigan, Charles White running all over the field, Jacques Robinson winning the MVP.

But the Rose Bowl isn't the same, even if today it pits USC and Penn State, the Pac-10 and the Big Ten (OK, you can call me a curmudgeon – I am – but really, how many people think the BCS is a good thing?). Remember when Ryan Leaf was carried off the field at Husky Stadium with a rose in his hand? That was near the end of the Rose Bowl's run as the preferred destination of Pac-10 teams. The BCS changed all that. The LA Times' Chris Dufresne feels the same way and he articulates his feelings in this column. How do you feel about it?

• I also asked earlier for your favorite WSU sports memory of 2008. Haven't seen much in the way of responses, so I thought I would try again. If we get enough, I'll share my favorite Cougar-related memory if there are enough of your responses. But if not, I'll keep silent too. We'll be back later. Till then …

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