John Blanchette

When her assistant coach’s night-before math started adding up to a state championship, Jane Swiatek did everything but plug her ears. “I’m not the type who lets myself think about that,” she said. “But I hope for the best.”

The squall that blew over Roos Field late Friday afternoon was chilling enough. But there was little relief for Whitman County high jumpers Darcy Stamper and Tyler Blakely even after the rain passed, sailing as they were onto a soggy mattress dotted with puddles.

Amid the scattered hives of activity at a track meet, there is little to distinguish Chibron Tomeo from the other athletes chasing hundredths of a second and fractions of an inch. There is the bobbing lance of fiberglass advancing his sprint down the runway in a medieval joust with an opponent halfway to the sky. And the fact that, in the middle of his pursuit, he is upside down on a pole 16 feet in the air.

Make this one the get-well game the Spokane Shock couldn’t finish last week. Not that they didn’t have to go through a little hell first.

Linda Sheridan was good at games. Maybe underrated at charades, however. This story has been retrieved from a conversation that took place 28 years ago, or well before digital recorders. Reportorial penmanship was still relevant then, though primitive. But the notes were solid and if memory serves, there was a hint of a subversive’s pleasure in her voice.

Of the 18 intercollegiate sports played at Whitworth College, only in five have the athletes in the current senior class not experienced a championship. Winning is hardly taken for granted, but neither is it some crazy Everest.

Jim McKean remembers receiving hand-written recruiting letters from Marv Harshman on Washington State letterhead – the requisite flattery there but measured, with an implication of mutual need deserving mutual investment. “He seemed straightforward and sincere,” said McKean, “and guess what? He was straightforward and sincere.”

SEATTLE – Today: Gad, another loss? To the Astros? This team is still hard to watch. Never mind. Felix is pitching today. That’s the only time they’re worth watching anyway.

Before he was pro football’s most underappreciated kicker for the game’s most appreciation-resistant franchise, Jason Hanson apprenticed for the job at Washington State University. There was little competitively to recommend his last two Wazzu teams and of what there was, the best was Hanson himself. His punts salvaged approving nods out of numbing three-and-outs; field goals were actual spectacles. And in a few lost causes, he was sent out for attempts that brought to mind the sideshow quality of Evel Knievel taking measure of the Grand Canyon.

Cam F. Awesome? Really? “There are no others,” said Cam F. Awesome.

The headliner of this week’s USA Boxing National Championships has come and gone already, her one-two in and out of Spokane as quick as any combination you’ll see in the ring. One Olympic champ to showcase. And, to little surprise, boxing found a way to fumble the opportunity.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Tall, talented player shows up on campus with the baggage of considerable expectations. Multiskilled. Coach’s kid, with that basketball creature’s innate feel for the game. Three-point range to go along with a post game. Infinite possibilities.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Tall, talented player shows up on campus with the baggage of considerable expectations. Multiskilled. Coach’s kid, with that basketball creature’s innate feel for the game. Three-point range to go along with a post game. Infinite possibilities.

SALT LAKE CITY – So was life as No. 1 as much fun as everyone thought it was going to be? Maybe this is the wrong day to ask.