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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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COUGARS

It all starts tomorrow. Or today, if you are reading this on Sunday morning.

Football practice begins at 3 p.m. with a helmet-only workout. Which means the 110 or so who turn out – we'll find out tomorrow if someone didn't show up or is not available for some reason – will be getting back into shape. Though, with the amount of summer workouts players do today, they can't be too out of shape.

In Sunday morning's S-R I will have a story that looks at the most interesting questions head coach Bill Doba and the Cougar staff have to answer before the game in Wisconsin in less than a month. I came up with about 25, winnowed them down to five I thought would interest you, kept the rest to check out over the next few weeks, and wrote the story you can find on the full entry link (the unedited version; I'm sure there were a few typos, grammatical mistakes and just plain stupid wording the copy desk fixed before it appeared in your Sunday paper).

In researching the story I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with coach Doba. We talked about more than made the story – some of which you will probably see down the road – but one subject he really seemed to enjoy talking about was his new – old? – job, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.

I've known a lot of teachers in my life and one reason a lot of them stay in the profession is being around the kids, being in contact with teenagers and 20-somethings, keeps them … I don't want to say young, because that's too easy, so I'll go with … vibrant. And Doba seems the same way. After spending the spring mixing it up, teaching, coaching, being a lot more involved, seemed to agree with him.

One of my buddies played the offensive line at a Southern California football power years ago and he never really got to know the head coach until he was a fifth-year senior and finally starting. Up until then the guy was just a figure looming over practice. I know all major college head coaches aren't like that, but some are. They want to be aloof from the players. Doba isn't that type of guy. He seems happier when he's around his Cougars. And that's admirable.

But will it translate into wins? Who knows? A lot of Washington State's success every year revolves around health and luck. If the Cougars stay healthy, if the ball bounces the right way a few times … even Doba alluded to the same things at the Pac-10 media day.

All I know is practice starts tomorrow. And I'll be there. Till then …

By the way, I almost forgot this. The P-I's Greg John's did a nice profile on former Coug and Hawk Robbie Tobeck.



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