Team Kicks Off With Qb Debate

Look, it wouldn’t be Washington State football without a quarterback controversy.

It’s a Cougar tradition as ancient as the first four-legged Butch and as enduring as a sports writer’s second guess.

Some years, it’s been mere job-sharing. Sometimes it’s turned nasty.

Remember? Frank Mataya or Bob Gambold? Brad Gossen or Aaron Garcia? Mel Melin or Dave Mathieson? Ricky Turner or Clete Casper, or Ricky or Mark Rypien? John Hopkins or Chuck Peck? Jerry Henderson or Rich Olson - or Hank Grenda?

And now, with Cougar football in its 100th season, the ultimate quarterback debate:

Jack Thompson or Drew Bledsoe?

Gentlemen - and ladies - start your arguments.

You don’t have to stop with quarterbacks. On this Cougar team, there’s room for a running back controversy, a guard controversy, a defensive line controversy. Linebackers, DBs, kick returners - name it.

It’s the all-time Washington State football team, as chosen by The Spokesman-Review, with a little help from some friends, to commemorate the, uh, Cougcentennial.

“A hundred years?” mused Hugh Campbell. “It seems like 100 years since I played.”

Not quite.

Campbell is a mere 33 years removed from the achievements which made him WSU’s career leader in pass receptions and a sure-thing for this all-star team. Defensive end DeWayne Patterson, on the other hand, saw his last action as a Cougar just nine months ago.

And, of course, the Cougar roots of the late Mel Hein - the cinch of the century - are 68 autumns old.

With representation from virtually every era of Cougar football from 1928 on, the S-R’s all-time team includes two members of the college and pro halls of fame, two National Football League rookies of the year, six first-round draft choices and all three of the school’s consensus All-Americans. Collectively, the honorees played 133 seasons in the NFL, 18 more in Canada and three in the All-American Football Conference.

Just as impressive is a sampling of those who didn’t make the cut - from Butch Meeker, from whom the Cougar mascot takes its name, to Butch Williams, a three-team All-Pac-10 tight end. Twenty-eight members of the WSU Hall of Fame wound up on the waiting list.

Culling the rosters of 100 seasons down to 25 or 26 players was a predictably daunting exercise. Weighing the relative merits of Ace Clark - the captain of WSU’s first bowl team in 1915 - to, say, 1994 co-captain Ron Childs bordered on the futile.

For assistance, the paper impaneled a jury of 13 highly partial observers - WSU alums, former players, broadcasters, sports information directors and knowledgeable fans - with Cougar ties going back 70 years and had them pick their favorites.

The democracy part over, the Review then settled the photo finishes. And selected the coach.

In truth, numbers alone picked the coach. Ninety-three victories in 17 seasons prior to World War II make O.E. “Babe” Hollingbery both the winningest and the stayingest coach the school has ever had.

Few other choices were so clear cut.

And the position that figured to trigger the most dissent was quarterback.

Since Thompson’s arrival on campus 20 years ago, the Cougars have been blessed with a steady diet of future pros at the position - Turner, Rypien, Timm Rosenbach, Bledsoe, Garcia. And yet the best quarterback relative to his era may have preceded Thompson by 40 years.

Ed Goddard (see accompanying column) was Washington State’s only three-time first-team All-American - as voted by rival players for Liberty Magazine. But as a single-wing quarterback who played before most of our panel’s window of experience - and, alas, before statistics - Goddard received only token support.

The voting quickly boiled down to Thompson and Bledsoe - a tough choice. Just ask the man who recruited both, current Cougar head coach Mike Price.

“They’re very similar,” said Price, an assistant to Jim Sweeney when Thompson enrolled in 1974. “Both came in with outstanding recruiting classes, but it’s not like their careers were perfect.

“Jack stayed through three coaching changes and still managed to be successful. Drew played early in his career and took some hits both physically and mentally - the team dissension as he became the starter. I’m sure Jack would have liked to have won more games and if Drew hadn’t turned pro early, I’m sure there would have been another bowl game for us.

“I’m sure not going to choose.”

Statistical evidence is certainly inconclusive. Each owns eight school records, though had Bledsoe stayed to play his senior season he would have wiped out most of Thompson’s career marks. As starters, their records were modest - 13-16-1 for Thompson, 14-14 for Bledsoe.

Scale-tippers? Bledsoe did beat hated Washington once (Thompson never did), took the Cougs to a bowl game (ditto) and became WSU’s only overall No. 1 pick in the NFL draft.

Also, our panel - surprisingly, perhaps - preferred him by 2-1 margin. The only other vote went to Rypien.

Still, it’s not without misgivings that we relegate WSU’s “Throwin’ Samoan” to honorable mention. As he assumed the starting job in 1976, the Cougars were at their all-time nadir - just one winning season in the previous 10.

Thompson didn’t single-handedly reverse that - Price still refers to that recruiting class as one of the school’s finest - but he did give WSU fans hope.

Thompson’s view?

“It all has to go with the criteria you set,” said Thompson, who has remained close to the Cougar program over the years. “If you’re looking for the best pure passer, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that it’s Drew. A thrower like him comes along once in a million years.

“If you’re looking for the total package of strength, arm and athletic ability, you’ve got to put Rypien in there. And if you’re looking for competitive fire, you look at Rosenbach.

“But if you’re looking for the true Cougar quarterback, I blow all those guys away. That’s just me. And that’s not taking a thing away from any of those guys.”

Without debating each selection here - that’s your job - a few things should be noted:

If our panel seemed to lean too much toward professional accomplishment, we tried to err on the side of collegiate performance. For instance, defensive back James Hasty, in his eighth NFL season, is off to another sensational fall. But at WSU, he didn’t start until his senior year and didn’t particularly distinguish himself then. Likewise, George Reed’s CFL rushing records will never be broken, but Rueben Mayes, Keith Lincoln and Steve Broussard struck us as more productive collegians.

We went two-platoon all the way. Turk Edwards received enough votes as a defensive lineman to go both ways, as he did as a player, but we kept him on offense.

Only two of the 26 players selected never played professionally: punter Gavin Hedrick, who had a couple of NFL tryouts, and guard Steve Ostermann. But Ostermann is one of only five Cougars to be named named first-team all-conference three times.

“I wasn’t the type of guy to look for those kinds of honors, so it was a surprise the first time,” said Ostermann, a Boise Cascade executive in Chicago who finished his Cougar career in 1974. “I remember my first college roommate, Guy Moser, knocking on my bedroom window with the newspaper in his hand saying, ‘Look at this.’ I couldn’t believe it.

“But I was only 225 pounds as a senior and there weren’t many 225-pound guards in the pros. I did go to the Hula Bowl as a senior. Pat Haden was in the backfield, which was a thrill. And O.J. Simpson was doing the color commentary on TV.”

Choosing three running backs and three receivers was either a concession to the different offensive formations of various eras or a copout. Take your pick.

The balloting produced nine virtually unanimous selections: Campbell, Edwards, Hein, Mayes, Mike Utley, Keith Millard, Mark Fields, Clancy Williams and Jason Hanson. Of those, it’s unlikely anyone changed the look of his team quite so dramatically as Campbell.

As a sophomore in 1960, he didn’t catch a pass - in fact, he barely played - in his first game. In Game 2, he recalls his first reception as “a halfback pass from Keith Lincoln - more like a trick play.” But he would go on to catch nine more that day in a loss to Denver.

“When we came out to practice the Monday after, Suds (coach Jim Sutherland) changed our offense,” recalled Campbell. “Coaches today would question a move that drastic, but we’d been running a two-tight, one-wide offense and he split out the other end. I remember him saying, ‘We’ve got to use the players that produce.”’

Regrettably, no players who produced prior to 1928 cracked the lineup - not from the Rose Bowl winners of 1916, nor the most notorious Cougar of the period before, Harry Goldsworthy. A standout end from Oakesdale who graduated in 1908, Goldsworthy was acknowledged in one publication as “one of the dirtiest players on the Coast.”

One voter wished we’d opted for pre- and post-World War II teams because “it’s a different game now.”

He’s right, of course. And that’s the only thing about this team that will pass without debate.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Honorable mention Players who received more than two votes from our advisory panel, or made the all-conference first team at least twice, were accorded honorable mention: Harold Ahlskog, Hack Applequist, Ed Barker, Pat Beach, Lee Blakeney, Steve Busch, Earl Dunlap, Tom Erlandson, Wayne Foster, Ed Goddard, James Hasty, Walter Herreid, Torey Hunter, Bernard Jackson, Allan Kennedy, Dan Lynch, Anthony McClanahan, Bill Moos, Geoff Reece, George Reed, Tim Stallworth, Harland Svare, Lionel Thomas, Jack Thompson, Butch Williams, Eric Williams, George Yarno, Clarence Zimmerman