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One more day to WSU spring football

Posted by Vince Grippi

March 25, 2009 9:21 a.m. • 3 comments

COUGARS

We actually have some WSU news. And, being Paul Wulff is holding a spring football news conference this afternoon – and we will have a story on that plus more – it will be a busy day here at SportsLink, WSU edition. Read on.

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• We put together a short story on WSU’s All-Academic selections yesterday, but it didn’t run in the paper. So here it is …

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PULLMAN – Four Washington State men’s basketball players were named to the Pac-10’s All-Academic first team Tuesday, only the second time in the conference history one school has earned four of the top five spots.

Seniors Taylor Rochestie, who was named the conference’s scholar athlete of the year at the Pac-10 Tournament, Aron Baynes and Daven Harmeling and junior Nikola Koprivica matched the Stanford 2004-05 team with four first-team selections. Washington State, Stanford and California are the only schools to ever have at least three members earn the honor.

“The last two years we had three out of five, this year four out of five, including the academic player of the year, that’s great,” WSU coach Tony Bennett said. “That’s something that should be celebrated. Those guys have done a nice job and, like I said, I’m excited. They represent the right stuff.”

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• We also found this short piece in the Santa Barbara Independent on Taylor Rochestie. Talked with Rochestie yesterday and one thing we can pass on is his desire to keep playing – somewhere. He said he has always been the underestimated player, so that’s nothing new. When he came out of high school, he couldn’t get a scholarship at a Pac-10 school. When he decided to transfer he was not highly sought. And now that he’s leaving WSU, some people feel he won’t make it professionally, either here or abroad. No big deal. He’s going to try. As for a future in coaching, which seems natural seeing how he led on the court, he said that’s not in his future. If someone wants to call and want advice, fine, he’ll share that. But coaching isn’t his thing. Then again, he did mention that Tony Bennett told him he didn’t expect to coach either.

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• That’s it for now. Until later …

Three comments on this post so far. Add yours!

kaddy on March 25 at 10:15 a.m.
Taylor does seem like a natural fit for coaching, at some point. I hope he considers it sometime in the future.
Al_Loysius on March 25 at 2:08 p.m.
Maybe it is heresy to ask this question, but at least I can ask this because we don’t live in Texas, where they think there are only 2 sports: Football and Spring Football.

Why do we have spring football?

Why can’t we let these guys be students for half a year and progress towards graduation? Plus, compared to 40 years ago, the season is longer, impacts are more violent because the players are bigger and faster, which all leads to bodies breaking down and more severe injuries.

These guys have all been playing since they were 8. Can’t all this be done in August? These guys all know how to lift weights, etc. on their own.

The coaches could concentrate on their golf game and drawing “X’s” and “O’s” instead.

Seriously, Knute Rockne, Red Grange and Jim Thorpe did just fine without spring football.