Brink given national honor
SEATTLE – In a record-breaking season, Washington State senior quarterback Alex Brink recorded another first Thursday night.
He became the Cougars’ first winner of the Awards & Recognition Association Sportsmanship Award – and the 125-pound trophy that comes with it.
“There’s a lot people (at WSU) to thank,” Brink said after lifting the trophy that shows a player leaning over to help another player up, “but a lot of it goes back to my mom, a kindergarten teacher in Oregon. She always taught me academics and doing the right thing, being a good person off the field, were the most important things.”
Brink set four WSU career passing records during his career, but may be best remembered down the road by WSU fans for posting three wins in four games against the Washington Huskies.
It was how he handled the Huskies after this year’s game that may have clinched the trophy.
ARA president Ed Hunt said he decided to vote for Brink after watching the Apple Cup on television in Tennessee.
“What I watched most was what happened after the game,” Hunt said. “How Alex conducted himself after the game, that was the deciding factor. He was congratulating the other team. He was not praising himself, he was praising the other team.”
“I was reading through the recommendations,” former Brigham Young head coach LaVell Edwards, chair of the ARA selection committee, said about selecting Brink, “and, just reading through them, I had a very strong feeling this was the guy I wanted if I could make the selection myself.”
After being presented the award, Brink talked about his work with WSU’s Reading Buddies program (“Anything with the Magic School Bus is usually a big hit with these kids,” he said) and his future.
He revealed he has been invited to the Hula Bowl, a college all-star game Jan. 12 in Hawaii, and he would be signing with an agent as soon as today.
The ARA Sportsmanship Award is presented to the NCAA Division I football player who most exemplifies sportsmanship on and off the field. Brink, 22, was selected from 10 finalists. Previous winners of the 3-year-old award were Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams (2005 at Memphis) and St. Louis Rams running back Brian Leonard (2006 at Rutgers).