Joe Palmquist: Despite Kasses’ departure, we won’t let Cougars slip
Last Wednesday I said goodbye to Glenn Kasses, our beat writer for Washington State University athletics the past three years.
Kasses has decided to return to school to pursue his master’s degree in business at Boston College. It would be incorrect to say Kasses left because of the rigors of the job in Pullman. I believe he enjoyed his stay and he certainly grew as a journalist. He will be missed, as evidenced by the heartfelt responses he received on his blog.
The blog responses also made it apparent that people are assuming that because Kasses is leaving we are giving up on the blog and our coverage of Washington State athletics.
Total nonsense.
The commitment The Spokesman-Review has made to covering WSU athletics has always been total. There is not another news organization in the region that commits as much time and money to covering the Cougs.
We won’t have Kasses’ replacement tomorrow, but we are already sifting through applications. And for the blog nation out there, one of the requirements for the new beat writer will be a total commitment to the blog.
I can’t promise a timetable for the hire, but we know we need someone living in Pullman to deliver all the sports news – good and bad. Until we can get the right person in place, veteran sportswriter Vince Grippi will fill in. He will be just as prolific, if not more so, than Kasses.
For those of you addicted to the blog and feel like we’ve let you down, check out the activity from last summer. In June and July there were a total of six posts. We do let guys go on vacation and it’s not like there is a flurry of activity in Pullman in the summer. When there is news, you can find it at SportsLink (spokesmanreview.com/sports). On Friday, Grippi posted news of the new assistant football coach.
Grippi will be in Los Angeles for the Pac-10 football meeting in late July and he will be in Pullman as the Cougars prepare for the season opener against Wisconsin. It is my hope we have a new beat writer ready to roll by then. If not, Grippi will deliver. I promise.
Speaking of the blog
Later in the summer we will tweak our blogs to create one central location for sports news.
Please don’t panic. Readers will still be able to focus in on one school or one subject if they chose. We will have an option of selecting “WSU football,” for instance. By clicking on that option you will see only WSU football blog posts.
Stay tuned.