With $500,000 donation, Washington State names Legends Lounge after former Cougars QB Jack Thompson

PULLMAN – The Throwin’ Samoan will see his name plastered all over the walls of the fourth-floor Legends Lounge whenever he stops by Washington State’s football operations for a visit now.

Monday afternoon, WSU announced the naming of the Gray W Jack Thompson Legends Lounge inside the Cougar Football Complex, thanks to a $500,000 gift from three donors: Glenn Osterhout, Greg Rankich and one other who wished to remain anonymous.

Jack Thompson, the Hall of Fame WSU quarterback who set a handful of school, conference and NCAA records in his time with the Cougars, made the drive from Seattle to attend a naming ceremony in Pullman on Monday, along with his wife, kids and a few colleagues. WSU President Kirk Schulz, interim athletic director John Johnson and football coach Mike Leach were also in attendance.

Thompson said he was at a loss for words when Jason Gesser, the former WSU QB who’s now an Assistant Director of Athletics for the Cougar Athletic Fund, called to let him know the school was interested in dedicating the fourth-floor lounge. Both former Cougar signal-callers with Polynesian heritage, Thompson and Gesser became close when Gesser arrived at WSU in 1999.

“I was in disbelief, honestly,” Thompson said. “But Gess, he doesn’t pull too many punches, he doesn’t do things like that. So I knew when he called, he was serious.”

Osterhout, a 1983 WSU graduate who works and lives in Bellevue, has been close with Thompson for nearly a decade. The two have been “arm in arm,” Osterhout explained, and throughout the years, have combined on various projects for their alma mater.

“We’re kindred spirits,” Osterhout said. “We’re very, very similar in terms of our approach and our attitude and our passion for Washington State. So over the decade we’ve really developed a close relationship.”

Osterhout has been a generous giver to WSU Athletics, especially in the last six months. Last summer, he wrote a check to the school to name the Steve Gleason Recruit Suite on the top floor of the Cougar Football Complex. Six years ago, Rankich helped WSU finance the building in which Monday’s ceremony was held with a $3 million gift.

Monday’s naming ceremony was more than a year in the making – “we knew we wanted to do it before the season ended,” Osterhout said – but the half-million dollar gift is the second considerable private donation the school’s received since former athletic director Bill Moos left to take a job at Nebraska two weeks ago.

Wade Hogg, a 1995 graduate of WSU, donated $500,000 to the Cougar Athletic Fund just days after Moos’ departure for naming rights to Leach’s office in the football ops building.

Osterhout doesn’t find it coincidental that the fundraising efforts have gained steam since the AD’s exit. He sees a direct correlation, in fact.

“That’s when it’s the time for everyone to come together,” Osterhout said. “… It really is great to see the Cougar nation come together and unify and support together … and not splinter really. A pretty unwavering group of people. … I’m serious about the fact that this is the time to keep the momentum going. We cannot slow down.”

Osterhout hopes this becomes a domino effect, but thinks a lot will rest on the shoulders of the next athletic director. He says it’ll be imperative for that person to place an emphasis on private giving now that WSU has squeezed out all available revenue from TV and radio contracts, and is limited in how much it can borrow to fund new facilities.

“Once we really sat down and took a look at things and though about it, Bill was the right guy in 2010,” Osterhout said. “… He got the equal revenue sharing from the TV contracts, he got the IMG contract and those revenue streams allowed us to bond to build these facilities. But now we’re in a new era because our bonding capacity and our ability to borrow for many of the facilities is not there. So now, for us to keep going forward … it’s going to come down to private giving

“… I think it might be that we need a little bit different skill set in your athletic director now than you have prior.”

Opportunities will be available for naming rights when the school completes its baseball clubhouse and the indoor football facility WSU hopes to construct in the near future. Osterhout hopes donors leap at those opportunities.

“It’s really a fun way, whether somebody recognizes themself or their family, or like we’ve done,” he said, “we recognize somebody that’s been a mentor and a leader for all these years. Absolutely we hope there’s a domino effect.”

And Thompson believes there are plenty of untapped pockets. At a recent CAF gathering, he discovered that WSU’s alumni base was similar from a demographic standpoint to that of Oregon State and Kansas State. The profile is similar, but the donations aren’t.

“The average give (at OSU and KSU) was $2,200, ours was $850,” Thompson said. “We have 7,000 members. I think Oregon State had 15,000 and Kansas State had like 14,000. So the point is, the upside is huge for us, we just need to capture it. … We’re great at buying vanity plates, we’re great at sporting brand-new shirts and what not. We need to step up in a different way. We don’t have a deficit problem, we have a revenue-generation challenge.”

Thompson, one of seven members on a search committee tasked to find the next AD, echoed many of Osterhout’s sentiments.

“Now we need an AD whose skill sets encompass serious fundraising,” Thompson said. “And not that Bill couldn’t have done it, but I’m just saying for right now, he’s no longer with us, I don’t believe in looking in my rearview mirror, I believe in looking at what’s possible.”

On Monday, the crowd gathered on the fourth floor did take some time to look in the rearview mirror and reflect on Thompson, who’s made plenty of contributions to the Cougars beyond the ones he made while wearing the crimson and gray from 1976-78.

“He has been a great mentor for myself,” Gesser said, “not only in my time here as a quarterback, but also post-Washington State. We all understand what he does and what he means for us.”

Thompson was either first-, second- or third-team All-America in his three seasons with the Cougars. He earned his nickname from Spokesman-Review columnist Harry Missildine during a career that saw him pass for 7,818 yards and 53 touchdowns.