John Blanchette

There is a photograph, treasured by the grandfather, that illustrates better than any graduation declaration or long-ago journal entry just how preordained was the path of the grandson. Ed Pepple was coaching at Mercer Island High School, as he had forever – didn’t he greet the Mercer brothers with a whistle and ball when they first rowed ashore? – and was conducting one of his annual parent orientation nights. Matt Logie, his grandson, was 5.

Whatever tonight brings for the Spokane Chiefs – one more game to play or none at all – it’s good to remember that hockey in May seemed the least likely of all outcomes back in September. Oddly enough, the Chiefs still do.

Whatever tonight brings for the Spokane Chiefs – one more game to play or none at all – it’s good to remember that hockey in May seemed the least likely of all outcomes back in September. Oddly enough, the Chiefs still do. “We were picked to be last and look where we are now,” offered defenseman Jared Cowen. “People didn’t think we were going to be very good, and none of us really forgot that all year. “We’ve kept it in the back of our heads, even now.” Not that backup motivations are needed tonight, when they meet Portland in Game 6 of the Western Hockey League’s Western Conference finals at the Spokane Arena, with the Chiefs a loss away from elimination. “But it’s just human nature,” Cowen said, “to want to be better than people think you are.”

Shock, it’s good to have you back.

Here’s the deal on the hole in Shawn Swartz’s chest: To administer chemotherapy intravenously and withdraw blood and do the things that must be done to treat acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a Hickman line was implanted – a catheter with three ports. Regular flushes and cleaning were required to guard against infection and blood clots, and yet he developed such a clot nonetheless. So the line had to be – and this is the technical term – pulled out. And now there’s a hole.

Friday night Shawn Swartz will try to better his high jump mark in the Cougars’ annual meet against Washington in Seattle. Whether he ever scores a point in a dual or the Pac-10s is not irrelevant, but it will never quite measure the mark Swartz’s story will leave on those touched by it at WSU.

The Peace Corps is still around, but among other things that came into being in 1961 Fred Shaffer’s discus record outlasted the Berlin Wall, “Mr. Ed” and Roger Maris’ asterisk. It just couldn’t outlast Carter Comito.

So now it’s “Win the day for Pantone Matching System 19-1543 TC and 14-1159 TC?” Damn, that screws up the rhyme in the fight song.

So now it’s “Win the day for Pantone Matching System 19-1543 TC and 14-1159 TC?” Damn, that screws up the rhyme in the fight song. In the color-by-numbers nitty-gritty of athletic apparel, those are the digits that identify the new crimson and the new gray – well, one of the new grays – in which Washington State athletes will be swaddled in the coming years, the first peek coming Monday night at what the school called an introduction of a “department-wide brand and identity program.”