State Senate honors champion Eagles team

OLYMPIA — With a resolution that sometimes read like a sports page account of their come-from-behind Division I football championship win, the Senate honored the Eastern Washington University Eagles Friday morning. Members of the team held the NCAA trophy high and stood with EWU President Rodolfo Arevalo in the Senate and later the House galleries as both chambers applauded. The Eagles’ Jan. 7 victory even gave state Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, whose district includes the Cheney campus, a chance for a political dig. Arevalo was so calm during the game compared to the most prominent University of Delaware fan, Vice President Joe Biden, who was cheering wildly for the Fightin’ Blue Hens, Schoesler said. At the end of the game, Schoesler said, Arevalo was able to do “what every conservative political pundit would like to do, quiet the vice president.” With the Blue Hens up 19-0 late in the third quarter, many Eagle fans probably turned their televisions off, he added, but the number who will admit that is probably small. In the House, players and university officials shared the gallery with members of the highly decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a World War II unit made up of Japanese Americans, and survivors of the Japanese internments who were honored on “Remembrance Day.”