John Blanchette

Sometime after Gonzaga’s piñata-ing of Northwest Nazarene reached the 40-point threshold Saturday night, Przemek Karnowski found himself with the basketball in the low post, and instinctively scanned the floor for a pass receiver. This is good.

John Blanchette @JPBlanchette Coach Mike Leach has banned Washington State’s football players from Twitter. #ProblemsBabeHollingbery Didn’tHave

A doggie door gives a pit bull more resistance than what Todd Davis faced on his blitz dead up the middle. That started the whole thing. The rest was all tumult, ad-libs, anxiety and wonderment. Third-and-goal has never been like this before.

Fifty and a few more proud elders from Eastern Washington’s 1997 football team that won plenty and had plenty of fun were coaxed back to campus Saturday to be fed and feted and ushered into the school’s athletic hall of fame. No fibs were told at the pre-game tailgate, sources report, though perhaps not reliably. But in the interests of symmetry, maybe Eastern should have reached back another 10 years and added the ’87 team to the guest list.

Ankles barking again today. Doc says arthritis may be carrying those precincts. Index finger bandaged and swollen. Got between the dog and a disgusting looking bone he found in the park that I didn’t want him to have.

PULLMAN – You wouldn’t recognize the place. Full.

A magazine devoted to Pac-12 football currently on newsstands includes a photo essay on the conference’s stadiums. The title – “The Cathedrals” – seems a tad high-flown, especially if you’ve had a late-night security guard escort through the parking lot at Memorial Coliseum or recall that not long ago administrators at Washington were panhandling the Legislature with the plea that Husky Stadium was unsafe for human habitation. And, yes, Martin Stadium is included, though its sliver of the magazine spread would more accurately be labeled, “Roadside Chapels.”

PROVO, Utah – So will Washington State’s über-suffering multitudes give Mike Leach a second chance to make a first impression? Do they have a choice?

When the rocket- propelled grenade exploded beneath the Humvee, Josh Olson had been crouched behind a tire for maybe 90 seconds, returning fire after his squad had been ambushed in the darkened streets of Tal Afar. He was 24, a sergeant in the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 187th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. He’d enlisted upon his graduation from Freeman High School in 1997– he’d have joined at age 6 if he could – and served in Kosovo and Korea before being part of the initial invasion in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was driven and disciplined – a professional soldier, instinctive leader, immediate friend.