Mascot Provides Magic Touch WSU’S Ncaa-Bound Women’S Tennis Team Uses More Than Plastic Cougar

This is a tale so sticky-sweet that it deserves some sprinkles.

It seems only appropriate that it starts with a double dip from 31 flavors.

There they were, members of the Washington State women’s tennis team, debating vanilla or chocolate, shake or malt. The first big victory of the season, an 8-1 walloping of New Mexico, was only hours old. This after the Cougars had experienced, ahem, a rocky road, in their first match of the season against Cal. But that was forgotten as WSU coach Cari Groce and crew celebrated.

Cruising the glass and picking over the selections, someone’s eyes happened upon a plastic cougar cake decoration.

The minimum-wage adolescent behind the counter was no match for the nine tennis players and their strong-willed coach. He handed over the cougar without a fight.

And the cougar tradition was born.

Almost sounds too sweet to be true, doesn’t it?

Well, that’s only the half of it. Listen to this: “Before every match, we bring it out and pass it around,” said Groce. “Everybody has got to touch it.

“Some of the players will rub it on their arm,” she continued. “Sarah (Burrows), she rubs it all up and down her arm. A couple of them will touch it quickly and pass it.

“It is funny what they do, but they do the same thing every time. Then at the end of the match, we gather and we award the cougar to somebody and they are the keeper of the cougar until the next match.”

From a Seattle Baskin Robins, that cougar has traveled to Pullman, San Diego, Las Vegas and other stops around the West. From bag to bag, match to match.

Maybe it is not working as much magic as the players believe, but - hey - if a little cougar mojo is what you need to make it through, far be it for a non-believer to stop you. Anyway, all those non-believers are starting to look a little silly now. You see, this week the cougar and the tennis team are headed east.

After a year of rubbing, wishing and flat-out playing hard, the Cougars were selected to participate in the NCAA Tournament in Athens, Ga.

They’ll take on Mississippi State on Saturday. The Bulldogs aren’t as highly ranked as the Cougars - 56th to 31st. But it’s a team Groce and company know nothing about.

Last season, WSU made it this far (well, all of them but the cougar) only to lose in the first round.

“This year, we want to take it further,” said Groce.

That goal seems plausible considering how far the Cougars have come to make it to this point. Just a few years ago, this team was more into gardening than groundstrokes.

“Back then, we would spend the first 10 minutes of practice pulling weeds that had come up through the court,” said Groce. “We’d pull all those weeds and turn the grass surface into a hard-court surface.”

While the players were pulling weeds, Groce was pulling some strings behind the scenes.

Her biggest coup was pulling Erica Perkins out of the Emerald City and into the Palouse.

For those not in the tennis know, getting Perkins in crimson and gray seemed about as likely as getting Andre Agassi into understated garb.

“Everyone told us don’t talk to her,” said Groce. “Don’t even call her. You are wasting your quarter. She’s a Husky.”

Not just any Husky, either. A Husky with a family history.

Her father played basketball and tennis for Washington. The family lives in Seattle. They hold season tickets to UW football games. They even donated money to help build the UW’s Nordstrom Tennis Center, for goodness sakes.

“But we let her know she meant the world to us,” said Groce. “And I think they (UW) kind of took it for granted that she was coming there.”

Washington State wasn’t taking anything for granted. Groce was trying to get daily updates on where Perkins was going. It got so touch and go that WSU president Sam Smith even placed a call to Perkins’ high school principal to sing the praises of the university, its honors program and its commitment to student-athletes.

In the end, with her father’s blessing, Perkins picked WSU. “It was the best decision that I could have made,” Perkins said. “I would not have gotten to this level without Cari.”

Groce and her program might not have made it to this level without Perkins.

With Perkins, the 32nd-ranked player in collegiate tennis, the Cougars have been able to build and sustain success. It is no coincidence that last year, Perkins’ first, was also the first year the Cougars went to the NCAA Tournament. This year, in addition to leading WSU back to the postseason, Perkins was the only Cougar invited to play in the NCAA singles tournament in two weeks in Gainesville, Fla.

“She was that first blue-chip player that we needed,” said Groce.

Now, that little plastic cougar may have some superstitious influence over the team, but it is Perkins who has had a created a reality-based metamorphosis.

“The rest of our team has learned to look at her approach,” said Groce. “Stepping on the court, she’s not intimidated by who she is playing or what their ranking is. She is just going to play to beat them.

“For years, we would play UCLA and the name and the atmosphere, it was a lot for the players to get over,” the coach continued. “Then last year and even more this year, we really didn’t care who we were playing, we were just playing to win.”

And if they win this week, they may just deserve a cherry on top of all those sprinkles.