Playing right on cue

CALVIN ARMSTRONG could well be the best pro prospect of any senior on the Washington State roster this year. As of late, the left tackle is playing like it.

Two weeks ago, Armstrong shut down Oregon’s Devan Long and last week he turned in another solid effort against Stanford.

The 6-foot-7 senior from Centralia, Wash., is in his fourth year starting for the Cougars, giving him the distinction of having more starts than any other player on this year’s team. A first-team All-Pac-10 pick as a sophomore, Armstrong has shown he’s more than just a solid performer on the field, as well. Just one class shy of graduation, Armstrong set up his schedule this fall to revolve around football. He took some time this week to talk about that and more with The Spokesman-Review.

S-R: So the only class you’re taking right now is billiards?

CA: Yeah, it’s all I need to graduate. So I figured I’d make my academic semester as easy as I possibly could.

S-R: How long had you been planning this out?

CA: Oh, like four semesters. Almost a year-and-a-half. It worked out exactly as I wanted it to.

S-R: Sounds like you were pretty happy when you first realized this was going to be a possibility.

CA: Extremely happy. I knew coming into the season I kind of wanted to focus just on football, so it worked out for me like that.

S-R: So billiards isn’t keeping you up at night?

CA: No. It’s just a class I’m having some fun with, twice a week.

S-R: Are you any good now?

CA: Better. I wouldn’t say I’m good at it, but I’m better than I was before.

S-R: What else do you do with your life if you only spend two hours in class?

CA: Watch film, sleep in. Eat. That’s about it.

S-R: That’s a pretty good life.

CA: It’s really nice. The life. Now if only I was making a million dollars a year doing this … hopefully I’ll be doing that someday.

S-R: Well, since you bring it up, you do know that if you go to the NFL you’re not going to have that much free time, right?

CA: No, no, no, not at all. I’ll be in four-hour position meetings. I’ll have meetings all day long. It’ll be like having a 9-to-5 job, almost. But it would be worth it.

S-R: The kind of schedule that would make billiards class look pretty good.

CA: It would be a pleasure to take billiards instead of four-hour meetings. But you do what you got to do.

S-R: I understand your brother Curtis is pretty good. Does he still get the better of you at the pool table?

CA: Yeah. He’s still getting me. But we haven’t played in a while. I don’t know. I might kick his butt now. We’ll have to go play.

S-R: Any favorite version of the game?

CA: I’m just an 8-ball guy. I’m a regular billiards kind of guy. Nothing too fancy, just make the ball. I don’t need to do anything fancy with the cue ball or anything.

S-R: Can anything learned in billiards translate to the football field?

CA: No.