Players want passionate coach

According to Ken Casavant, who is heading up Washington State’s five-person football coach advisory committee, some of the characteristics the committee hopes the new coach will exhibit include:

“A passion for the game.

“The player (representative) talked with other players, I suppose, and something they really wanted was passion and excitement from the coach,” Casavant said. “A sense of, ‘Let’s all get together and get it done’ kind of thing.” Casavant called it the Robb Akey approach. “We all know that Robb’s juices start flowing before he wakes up and don’t stop until he quits.”

“A knowledge of what it takes to be a Coug.

“This wasn’t 100 percent,” Casavant said, “but people said they should either be a Coug or know the Pacific Northwest a bit. … That kind of evolved through our discussion toward it wasn’t necessary that they be Cougs as much as it was that they understand the Pacific Northwest, that they be aware of what WSU and the city of Pullman can offer and/or be characterized by other folks.”

“A desire to be and stay clean.

“That was part of my mantra, but others agreed with it as well,” Casavant said. “They had to be committed to the academic side of the student-athlete. So the student perspective, the graduation success rates, movement toward a degree, all that had to be part of what the coach was emphasizing.”

Vince Grippi