It’s Their Party With Decades Of Frustration Ready To Be Exorcised, Cougar Fans Let It All Hang Out At Raucous Rose Bowl

The day was almost full enough, with a huge tailgate party of all the Cougars you could imagine and a sold-out stadium packed full of pumping pompons and winking flashbulbs.

It was only missing two more seconds of play and a last-shot pass into the end zone.

But the game didn’t go the Cougars’ way, no matter how hard the fans willed their team to win and how hard they cheered and how many times they talked to quarterback Ryan Leaf like he was in the next seat.

For many fans, the ride was most of the fun, a roller-coaster of a game that zapped brothers Todd and Kelly Stroschein whenever they tried to sit down.

“Coug it, Coug it, Coug it,” said Todd Stroschein, who sounded a bit like a train and pumped his arms like he was chugging down the tracks. “Like a damn steam engine, baby, yeah.”

The Rose Bowl had become a happening scene for Cougar fans by 9 a.m. - five hours before the opening kickoff. They arrived propped up by crutches, canes and coffee. Some had gone to bed early New Year’s Eve. Some just kept going. Like Michael Grindle, a self-described anarchist, underage drinker and Washington State freshman.

Grindle adeptly explained the workings of his plastic hat, also known as a beer buddy.

“Can on each side,” said Grindle, who started speaking in complete sentences as he warmed to the topic and even invented words like “festivalize.”

Several sitcoms’ worth of characters turned up to support the Cougars, including knockoff superheroes calling themselves Blur Man, the Living Ken Doll and Nuke Man.

Almost every fan wore at least one piece of Cougar clothing, but to stand out in this crowd, people had to get crazy. They wore fake tattoos, wigs, red and silver paint, and homemade Cat-in-the-Wazzu hats.

Tom and Dave Sutherland were Cougar Coneheads, brothers who refused to go out of character, even when a former college teacher teased them.

“Everyone shouts, ‘Hey Coneheads,”’ Dave Sutherland said. “They know us. A disclaimer: Our parents had nothing to do with this. We ate a lot of lead paint as children.”

Probably the largest tailgate party in Cougar history featured the singing Crimson Company, a sound system and a dwindling alcohol supply. A beer or a Bloody Mary seemed to be attached at the hand to almost every adult. They came, they saw, and some got snockered.

“I’m gonna write a thesis on bolts, and I’ve been hammered since 9 a.m.,” said Steve Carstens, a Washington State graduate student in civil engineering. “I’ve really been utilizing my education.”

The party was flanked by satellites of crimson and silver balloons and even an old blimp dressed up with new Cougar banners. The fans clapped and even kind of danced to “You Shook Me All Night Long,” “Twist and Shout” and “I’m Walking On Sunshine.”

Eric Nyberg was a face-painter who called himself Nuke Man. His secret powers - and his bright red face - really came from all the radiation at his job in Hanford. At least, that’s what he said. Nyberg, who graduated from WSU in ‘87, puffed amateurishly on a “Coug-ar,” a cigar that he transformed with the help of a Cougar sticker. He wore a “FarFromPuken” sticker on his back, blew hard on a Cougar horn that sounded more like a sick elk and yelled for the Cougars. His mother covered her head with a newspaper, next to his father.

“They said they were proud this morning,” said Nyberg, who bought his plane tickets to L.A. before the Cougars even won the Apple Cup. “They said I’d come a long way.”

“Just look at our son now,” said mom Sandy Nyberg, with just a hint of sarcasm.

Colfax Judge Wally Friel played the Cougar fight song on his trumpet for maybe the 8 millionth time since he bought the instrument 50 years ago. A large audience gathered, and Peter Yates played Santa Claus. He wore the beard, the hat, a Cougars T-shirt, tennis shoes and pumped his arm in tune to the music.

“It’s part of my dare-to-be-stupid tour,” said Yates, who said he wouldn’t drink because he’s a role model. “The beard probably won’t stay on the whole game, because it is a little warm.”

A little? The roses wilted. The people sweated. Northwest refugees stripped down and baked in the California sun, blocked only by airplanes advertising everything from “Critter Control” to “Virgin Air.”

Everyone seemed to be selling something. Cart-pushers hawked frozen lemonade, and one RV advertised Nicorette to help smokers quit.

“Yes, let’s drum up a victory with Dreyer’s Ice Cream drumsticks,” shouted a persistent man selling ice cream. “Whooah, nelly. Sasparilla with vanilla.”

Cougar T-shirts of all shapes and colors were on display, from men’s volleyball to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to ones with Rose Bowl insignias. One man wore a gray shirt that said simply “College” in crimson letters. Another wore one that said, “Don’t limit your education. Wazzu. The best five or six years of your life.”

Finally, somebody kicked a football into the air and the game started zipping along with many Cougar fans still looking bewildered to be there.

They clapped their hands like a shark’s snapping jaws to cheer on the defense. When they started winding down, the marching band whipped them up again. The Stroschein brothers couldn’t shut up.

“Wide open,” shouted Kelly Stroschein, who graduated in ‘97, after a particularly nice catch. “Beautiful, yeah, that’s my boy.”

Early in the third quarter, Washington State was ahead and life was good. Then Scott Shogan arrived (insert ominous mood music here). He graduated from Michigan in 1996, and he was a speck of trouble in the Stroschein section.

“Now we got this Michigan guy here,” Kelly Stroschein said. “You’re gonna be gone real quick,” his brother added. “You jinxed us. It is our destiny to win.”

“It was your destiny to be here,” said Shogan, talking a bit like “The Terminator.” “It’s our destiny to win.”

No one sat down for long in this section. Michigan slid ahead, and the Cougars went on defense for a very long time. The Stroscheins wanted the defense to do something so that Leaf could do something. Finally Michigan’s offense stalled with about 90 seconds to go.

“I’ll be honest with you,” said Shogan, who ended up in the WSU section after paying a scalper $200. “If we lose this game, I’ll cry.”

Well, he didn’t have to cry. The game ended before the crowd knew it, the final two seconds swallowed by a spiked ball.

Cougar fans were stopped in the middle of pompon waves, cheers and arm pumps.

Kelly Stroschein threw down the pompon he’d been yanking for an hour. His brother threw down his hat and screwed up his face.

“You can’t let this game end like this,” Todd Stroschein pleaded to a referee who couldn’t hear. “We have two seconds.”

“That was weird,” Shogan admitted. “I don’t know about that.”

Then the Cougar fans and the lone Michigan guy shook hands. “See you next year,” Shogan said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 7 Color photos