‘A long journey’: Inside WSU OL Jonny Lester’s winding path from walk-on to guard to impromptu right tackle

PULLMAN – An Outlook email notification saved Jonny Lester’s football life. It was last winter, and a few weeks after Washington State wrapped up the regular season, Lester felt a bit confused. He had been promised a scholarship by coach Jake Dickert, who said he would deliver it the following spring, when spots opened up.

But this was mid-December, and Dickert had already decamped for the same job at Wake Forest, leaving the Cougars scrambling: Who was hitting the transfer portal? Who was sticking around to play in the bowl game? What about the coaches? In three years at WSU, Lester had yet to see any meaningful playing time, and with his wedding coming up in the summer, he made up his mind.

If he didn’t get a scholarship, he would walk away from football altogether.

Which is why Lester almost fell off his couch one afternoon in December 2024. He was hanging out at his apartment when he saw an email roll across his phone. It was from Pete Kaligis, the Cougars’ interim head coach, who had attached a document to the message. So Lester clicked into the email and checked out the attachment.

“It was the scholarship,” Lester said.

Lester was elated. He was “kinda losing it,” he said – but he couldn’t allow himself to feel too ecstatic. He wasn’t sure if Kaligis planned on staying at WSU. He wasn’t sure who the Cougars would hire as their next head coach, and he definitely wasn’t sure if they would honor the scholarship. Whoever it was, Lester understood, would be under no obligation to do so.

Enter Jimmy Rogers, who refueled Lester’s fire for football without addressing the scholarship at all. Rogers has illustrated his belief in Lester by making an even stronger gesture: He’s made Lester a central part of the WSU offensive line, where Lester earned a starting nod at left guard, only to move to right tackle in recent weeks due to injuries. Under scholarship since Rogers took over in late December, Lester is flourishing.

A Spokane native, Lester has had to stay on his toes recently. He started the first six games of the season at left guard, where he yielded only one sack in 240 pass-blocking snaps, but that’s when injuries befell the position group. Right tackle Christian Hilborn went down with a knee injury last month, prompting Division II transfer Jaylin Caldwell to take his place. But in WSU’s close loss to ranked foe Virginia earlier this month, Caldwell exited early with his own injury.

That prompted coaches to move Lester to right tackle and swap in third-year sophomore Noah Dunham at left guard. Last year, Lester had taken a total of 27 snaps at left tackle, but those came in short spurts toward the end of games, when the outcome was all but decided and coaches wanted to give younger players some experience. That meant that Lester’s first meaningful action at tackle was coming under these circumstances: In crunch time at Virginia’s Scott Stadium, where more than 50,000 fans made the place sound like a spaceship taking off as their Cavaliers rallied in the fourth quarter, navy and orange LED lights flashing and spinning and flying.

Lester knew there was a chance he could move to tackle should another injury hit the Cougars’ offensive line – the team had that plan in place before the game – but it didn’t make things any easier on WSU, which fell on a fourth-quarter safety, UVA’s final salvo in a 12-0 closing run. “I knew the possibility,” Lester said, “but obviously I don’t think we want to be thrown in that situation without being fully prepared for it.”

Lester and the Cougs were certainly prepared for that last weekend, when they ran away with a 28-7 win over Toledo, delivering the final blow on a 12-play, six-minute drive that featured 11 rushes. On the afternoon, Lester finished with a Pro Football Focus run-blocking grade of 70.0, tops among WSU offensive linemen in that game. He even took the podium for postgame interviews. It was his first time doing so.

That’s the kind of development that captures Lester’s ascent at WSU, the type that illustrates how much his life has changed in the last nine months. Last winter, he was seriously considering dropping football. This summer, he landed a starting gig on the offensive line for the Cougars, who will be making their second appearance on CBS this season in Saturday’s game at Oregon State.

“It’s been hard,” Lester said. “I mean, coming out of high school not big enough to play O-line yet, but them expecting me to put on the weight and then learn all the technique, which is completely foreign and different for the most part. It was a long journey. But I think I’m happy where I am, and I’m happy to be playing for the Cougs finally – like, actually playing, starting. I think it just took a lot of work, and it was very hard.”

***

Lester is not supposed to be here. And not in the typical way, the way where a player goes underrecruited, stars for their college team and makes all their doubters look silly along the way. Lester is different because only a few years ago, he didn’t want any of this. He didn’t know WSU was located in Pullman. He didn’t want to play college football. If an opportunity came his way, he saw it as a vehicle to advance in academics, where he was interested in studying biology and chemistry.

Growing up in Spokane, where he went on to play at Northwest Christian, he didn’t watch college football on Saturdays. Didn’t watch the NFL on Sundays. Until he was about 10, he played soccer, finding a niche as a goalie. “I was pretty good,” he said with a grin.

Lester’s parents didn’t want their son playing football, fearing he would sustain a serious injury in a sport where the foundation is laid with contact. But once Lester made it to the ninth grade, and all his friends were going out for football, his folks started to soften on the idea. Lester made them aware that plenty of concussions happen in soccer, too, and he had gotten along just fine in that sport. So they relented, allowing Lester to play football, beginning as a high school freshman.

That was the only year that Lester played offensive line in high school. But because he was still growing into his body, he didn’t play very much anyway. “He was kind of a string bean,” Northwest Christian coach Marshall Hart said. As a ninth grader, Lester got his most playing time as an extra blocker, a big body who could generate some push up front.

Not until Lester was a sophomore and junior did he flourish into the kind of athlete that can ascend to the FBS level and toggle between guard and tackle like he’s playing Xbox. Competing at the 2B level, the smallest 11-man format in Washington, he played all over the field at Northwest Christian: Tight end, linebacker, defensive end. In his senior year against Ritzville, he snared a one-handed interception. The same season, he found himself in a footrace against Freeman’s Boen Phelps, who is now starting at nickel for Boise State. Lester caught up to Phelps and dragged him down. “Kinda cleaned his clock,” Hart said.

But eventually, it became clear that if Lester was going to play at the college level, he would be doing so in the trenches in some form, whether as a blocking tight end or as an offensive lineman. He fielded offers from FCS schools Montana State and Eastern Washington, the latter of which coveted such a promising prospect in its backyard. But Lester had his heart set on playing FBS football, and he received preferred walk-on opportunities from Oregon and WSU.

“His attitude – I think that’s the biggest thing. Jonny’s kind of a servant,” Hart said. “So Jonny kinda just jumps in and does whatever he’s asked to do. He’s an extremely hard worker. He really buys into things. But it’s his footwork, his footwork. He’s always been a good athlete. He put on weight the right way.”

That kind of attitude helps explain how Lester landed at WSU to begin with. What it doesn’t explain is why he stayed with the Cougars, why he never considered leaving when he wasn’t on scholarship, when he wasn’t seeing anything resembling meaningful playing time. The reason is the same reason he stayed at Northwest Christian.

“Jonny’s really loyal,” Hart said.

In high school, Lester was pulled in several directions. Officials from other Spokane schools got in his ear: Come play for us. Prove yourself at a higher level. In effect, they were recruiting him away from Northwest Christian, a small school that competes against other small schools. “Playing at 2B in Washington is not the best for recruiting,” Lester said. “At all.”

But Lester stayed with Northwest Christian, stayed with Hart, the coach who had given him his first opportunity. “Because I love him, and he was a great coach,” Lester said. “And I would say, yes, I’m loyal. I’ve never even really thought about transferring. I wanna finish my degree here. I wanna be a Coug.”

Talk to Lester for long enough and you realize that he’s given this kind of thing some thought. It’s clear that the journey means something special to him, that he takes pride in the work: the training sessions with Tommy Boyer Kendrick in Spokane, the patience of waiting his turn, the rewarding feeling when it all paid off.

“When you think of transferring, it can sometimes be like, how much money can buy you as a person? Like, how much are you worth?” Lester said. “And I don’t like the idea of that. I’ve talked to other offensive linemen here, and we all kinda agree that’s what it’s about. Like, how much money can buy you to leave a place you love?”

And you don’t feel like there’s a dollar amount for you?

Lester kept the same poker face he always wears. “Nope,” he said, without a hint of hesitation.