Cougars Get Hero’s Welcome Hundreds Greet WSU Team At Airport

They made signs and pompoms, pulled on their crimson and gray, and headed to the Spokane airport for one last hurrah.

Cougar fans didn’t run out of enthusiasm just because the clock ran out before their team won the Rose Bowl.

Nearly 350 people crowded the “A” concourse Friday evening to greet Washington State players and coaches arriving from Pasadena. The team that turned even the most haphazard Inland Northwest sports spectator into a rabid football fan got a hero’s welcome home.

“We wanted to meet the greatest team in the Northwest,” said Debbie Busch, a WSU graduate student from Pullman. “We love them even though they lost.”

WSU graduates Gene and Karen Terrell of Post Falls got off a flight from Los Angeles - and the Rose Bowl - almost two hours before the Cougars’ scheduled arrival. They decided to wait around for their team.

“We wanted to finish what we started,” said Karen Terrell. “We’ve supported them a long time.”

Coach Mike Price emerged from the jetway first, triggering the shrieks, hoots and applause that would last the nearly 20 minutes it took to empty the chartered airplane.

Price - hauling a large wooden box covered in red pawprints and overflowing with paperwork - scanned the exuberant crowd and beamed. “This is an awful great surprise,” he shouted as TV cameras zoomed in around him. “We didn’t lose the game. We just ran out of time.”

As the cameras turned their focus away from Price to the players that filed off the plane, fans surrounded the coach to shake his hand or pat him on the back.

“Bless your heart,” said a woman.

“Thank you for a wonderful season,” said a man.

At least one player seemed awed by all the adoration. “We didn’t know anybody knew we were coming back,” he said.

But these were not your ordinary fans. These were true believers.

They waved their “Go Cougars!” signs, wore face paint proclaiming their Cougar loyalties and adorned their toddling children in Cougar-wear. They thrust out their hands, shirts and footballs for autographs from beloved players. They knew the names of all the coaches.

“Hey coach Walker! Great game!” shouted one as Mike Walker made his way through the clamoring crowd.

“Where’d everybody come from?” Walker asked. “These are true Cougar fans, I tell you.”

“I think this is fantastic,” said coach Lawrence Livingston in a voice barely audible from shouting-induced laryngitis. “It’s all been like a dream come true.”

“It’s been quite a ride,” said Brenda Boose, wife of defensive end Dorian Boose. Her husband stood a few feet away, graciously signing his name to the dozens of objects pushed his way. “This is icing on the cake.”

As the players and coaches made their way down the concourse, so did the receiving line, which followed the team with shouts of congratulations and encouragement.

“We could have won the game,” Dorian Boose said as the crowd cheered. “We should have won the game.”

Jack Severinghaus of Spokane rushed his family to the airport when he heard on the radio the team was on its way home Friday night.

“We just figured we’d better get out here,” Severinghaus said. “This was beyond an ordinary football game.

“It’s something we’ll all remember for years.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo