John Blanchette

Her gold medal rifle is in a museum and she hasn't fired a competitive round in 16 years – which doesn't mean that Launi Meili doesn't still get Olympic goose bumps. But at football games?

SEATTLE – Turning points? You want turning points? In the cornfield maze that was Seattle Seahawks' delightful 35-14 victory over the Washington Redskins on Saturday in the first of the weekend's four NFL wild-card playoff games, there was little that wasn't a turning point.

There is everything to like about a press conference at which a 3-year-old girl wiggles in her front-row chair, shucks off her shoes and puts a happy headlock on two cuddly stuffed Eagles – oblivious all the while to her daddy enjoying the biggest moment of his professional life. Doesn't happen at a Michigan or an Arkansas, but things don't have to be quite so solemn at Eastern Washington.

The punch line to the old "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" joke wasn't supposed to be a vehicle for irony. "Practice, practice, practice," is how the gag goes. But to Brad Walker, it's really funny.

Of the many ways of tracking the evolution of Gonzaga basketball, the new favorite seems to be the high-profile recruit. The Bulldogs are getting them now – one recruiting service ranked this season's incoming class as the 11th best nationally, for whatever that's worth. Then there's the flipside: the high-profile departing transfer.

SEATTLE – There's never been much flash to Marcus Trufant's game – and even when there is, he tries to shade it. Take for instance, the 84-yard interception return for the piling-on points in the Seattle Seahawks' 42-21 romp over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at Qwest Field that clinched a fourth consecutive NFC West championship.

Another patrol for second platoon, Alpha company, and Rob Corkrum – all 6-foot-8 of him – is wedged in the back of a heavily armored MRAP, with a sticker price of more than $500,000, crawling along a supply road outside Fallujah. This is January and as days go it's prominent in the memory, but in fact the days all pretty much run together. Alpha company runs lead operations, looking for IEDs – improvised explosive devices. Or in regularspeak, roadside bombs. The missions are 12 to 16 hours long, though they will be shortened somewhat when the insane heat of an Iraq summer is turned up. Every week, the company heads back to Ramadi where the battalion – the 321st Engineers – is based, for rest and repairs.

This is the 100th Apple Cup, and if the first 99 have revealed anything it's that Washington vs. Washington State does not always make for great football – or, as this year, even much in the way of anticipation. Nor does every game have its big moment. But most have several.

1 Mr. Perfect misses (1982)

Sports make for unbeatable scrapbooks. And that's the essence of "Sports: Breaking Records, Breaking Barriers," a Smithsonian-developed exhibit now at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture. Thirty-three individuals, from the greatest athletes of all time to unsung innovators – and the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" United States hockey team – are featured in the display, making its 10th and final stop in a three-year national tour. The exhibit's stay at the MAC runs through Jan. 1.

PULLMAN – Put Brandon Gibson in stripes and Washington State beats Arizona State on Saturday afternoon, 24-23. Because from Gibson's perspective – and nearly everyone at Martin Stadium except for back judge Gregory Wilson and the replay official in the booth – he scored a touchdown on a second-quarter pass from Alex Brink that would have covered 32 yards.

It's not as if Portland State took the "shoot" out of its run-and-shoot offense Saturday night. But the Vikings certainly put the "run" in capital letters.

LOS ANGELES – Fred Davis looks almost too big to be a tight end. Listed at 6-foot-4 and 250 pounds, the USC senior does a passable imitation of an offensive tackle. But he catches passes like a wide receiver. He hurdles defenders like Edwin Moses – or Superman.

Maligned might not be the right word, but the Washington State defense was at the least picked at after last week's loss at Wisconsin. And when San Diego State marched down the Qwest Field turf Saturday with the opening kickoff and scored on a 15-yard Atiyyah Henderson run on a modified Statue of Liberty trick play, the murmurs started to grow.

MADISON, Wis. – There was one question mark that turned into an exclamation point Saturday in Washington State's 42-21 loss at No. 7-ranked Wisconsin. The Cougars' offensive line did a great imitation of road graders, the term head coach Bill Doba used for the Badgers before the game.

As much as any player has, Dave Staton owned the Northwest League. This was 1989, and nobody stung the baseball harder, more often or in a timelier fashion. At 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds, just his stroll from the on-deck circle intimidated opposing pitchers. He won the league's Triple Crown – batting average (.362), home runs (17) and runs batted in (72) – in leading the Spokane Indians to another pennant, a four-bagger never pulled off before or since.

Ultimate fighting is featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week, and upon hearing that news Chauncy Welliver sighed, or almost – there being little in the way of disheartenment or resignation in the immediate scope of Spokane's happy heavyweight, the Hillyard Hammer. "Boxing is a dying sport and UFC is slowly taking over," he said. "It's sad watching boxing wither away."

John Cassleman has senioritis, but not in the typical sense. In fact, he wouldn't mind a do-over of his final track season at Washington State.