Washington State Flush With Rosy Hue

Even the hangover feels good.

Washington State’s football team--and fellow students and administrators--wake up the morning after, shuffle through the streamers and empty bottles from the months-long party that was the winter of ’97 and find confirmation that it was all real and not a dream. They have proof, even beyond the pictures of the golf course adjacent to the Rose Bowl last Jan. 1 transformed into a Cougar Woodstock, as one of their own coined it.

The projected $1.7-million income for the annual scholarship fund had reached about $2.7 million by the end of the fiscal year, June 30.

The $3 million that had been budgeted for gifts and donations actually hit about $8 million.

About half the money for the new $14-million indoor practice facility on the drawing board for all sports was raised . . . during the summer.

The fall of 1998 brought the largest class of incoming freshmen in 18 years, 2,877, a 28% increase from a year ago.

School officials will note that the gains are due in part to programs already in place or being implemented at the same time, everything from tele-counseling in which prospective students could speak with current students to the receptions held throughout the state that enabled people to meet the faculty and university president. And then the same school officials will bow to the impact of a football team that went from 5-6 in 1996 to 10-2 last season and a berth in the Rose Bowl.

“We had already started down that path,” said Gus Kravas, the vice provost for student affairs, “when here came this big wind at our back.”

Just try to prove it wasn’t a hurricane. Expectations are up for a program that must try to answer the challenge with only 11 scholarship seniors, but so are enrollment and donations. There is talk of turning Martin Stadium from artificial turf back to grass and, in the next major project after the current round of construction, increasing capacity from the current 37,600 to at least 48,000 and maybe even to 51,000.

The storybook season gives way to the epilogue. The team that in one sense is still catching a tan from its moment in the sun all those months ago now also struggles under the weight of youth and an uncertain quarterback situation. Coach Mike Price began the week debating who will be in the opening lineup when Washington State plays UCLA on Saturday.

The Cougars are 3-1, but the wins were over Boise State, Idaho and 1-3 Illinois. The loss was against California last weekend, when 34 of the 60 Cougar players were in their first season on the travel squad, the defense did not give up a touchdown and the offense surrendered three. The Bears scored twice on interception returns and another time after picking up a fumble and won, 24-14.

So it is that the Cougars return to the Rose Bowl, this time for a regular-season game, as heavy underdogs, the role even last season could not ditch forever. At least some will have them as sentimental favorites.

“I don’t think anybody’s putting too much pressure on us,” Price said of the increased expectations. “Certainly not the media.”

Maybe they are pegged as one-hit wonders.

“I suppose so,” Price said. “No one says those things to your face.”

No one has to.

“It’s like the Santa Monica Pier,” Athletic Director Rick Dickson said. “If you venture in the water, you’d better be ready to surf. We’re not talking Lake Washington here. We’re talking Pacific Ocean. We’ve set the objective that we want to be a premier athletic program in this premier league.

“Not as much internally here, but there was always a sense externally that we shouldn’t be expected to attain at the highest level. . . . [The success last season] just validated [it was possible]. Obviously the crowning jewel was the Rose Bowl. But nine of our 17 teams competed in the postseason. If you’re Stanford or UCLA, maybe that’s not a high ceiling. But it’s triple what we’re used to here.

“Certainly, that reinforced what we had said internally all along. We wanted that, to be where there’s no turning back.”

Said Kravas: “The time after the Apple Cup [the game against rival Washington] and through the Rose Bowl and the month after that, I think it was a celebration of the university and the community. It was an opportunity for us to look at what we were proud of.

“The kind of exposure that comes from the Rose Bowl is something we had never experienced before. The fact that we were on the cover of not only the local but the national newspapers for several days around that game gave us the chance to share who we are. We found that it struck a chord.

“We’ve had the opportunity to talk to our colleagues who have experienced something comparable in the past at other schools. But you have to experience it to really know it. We had some inkling of what it would be like. But it was bigger and better than what anyone could have imagined.”

Party on.