Fast Break
Former Cougar dies in line of duty
Former Washington State University football player Randal Simmons, a Los Angeles police department SWAT officer, died Thursday in a shootout in Los Angeles.
Five men were killed in the 11-hour ordeal.
Simmons, 51, played cornerback for the Cougars from 1976-1978. Current WSU assistant coach Mike Levenseller was a teammate of Simmons.
“Randall was just a great human being,” Levenseller said. “He always showed up when we played in L.A. and kept close to his Cougar roots.
“It’s a shock. Everything I have seen reported today is how everybody says what a great human being he was and how well like he was. That’s how he was here as a player.”
College basketball
Davis transfers to Binghamton
The Binghamton (N.Y.) University men’s basketball team has added forward Theo Davis, who transferred from Gonzaga University.
BU coach Kevin Broadus said that Davis is not on scholarship with the Bearcats. He can practice with the team but is not eligible to play until the end of first semester next season.
The 6-foot-9, 235-pound forward from Brampton, Ontario, will be eligible to compete for the Bearcats after the 2008 fall semester ends in December.
According to the Binghamton University Web site, the school is 290 miles away from Toronto, where Davis’ father suffered a stroke back in November. Davis left GU in December to be with his father.
College baseball
Believe it or not, Whits on deck
It’s hard to imagine even Chicago Cubs legend Ernie Banks wanting to “play two” here in the Pacific Northwest with the weather being what it is. But that’s exactly what the Whitworth College baseball team is hoping to do this weekend.
The Pirates were originally scheduled to open the season today in Caldwell, Idaho, against The College of Idaho, but poor weather forced the cancellation of the four-game weekend series. So the Bucs and Coyotes opted to take part in a hastily scheduled three-team round-robin affair at Harris Field in Lewiston that will also include Lewis-Clark State, the host team.
According to Whitworth officials, L-C State’s field is clear of snow but still wet, and the hope is that the high winds forecast for the region will speed the drying process.
The revised schedule calls for the Pirates to play L-C State at 12:30 p.m. and COI at 3:30 on Saturday, then turn around on Sunday and play COI at 10 a.m. and L-C State at 12:30 p.m.
The region’s two NCAA Division I schools, Washington State and Gonzaga, are scheduled to open their seasons Feb. 22, with WSU hosting Creighton in the first of a three-game weekend series at Bailey-Brayton Field, and GU traveling to Oklahoma State to face the Cowboys in the first of five games to be played in three days.