Bruins on the road to nowhere

There are few things in college football more memorable than a Pullman, Wash., travel package, though the details read more like a survival manual than a Frommer’s guide description.

A long journey to the middle of a vast nothingness called the Palouse, where fans have a pitchforks-and-torches mentality, Pullman has been a do-we-have-to? destination for years.

UCLA trudges into town today for what could be another teeth-grinder. The Bruins face a Washington State team that has beat-’em-like-a-drum qualifications -- the Cougars are 2-5 overall and 0-4 in conference play and have Bill Doba on the coaches’ critical list.

Everything points to a Bruins victory -- except for that patch of real estate where the game will be played.

Pullman travel advisories are full of wish-we-weren’t-here postcard memories.

* Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen remembers flying into the Pullman airport during a trip in the mid-1960s.

“At the end of the runway, there were bales of hay just before a bluff,” said Hansen, who then was the conference’s public relations director. “It looked like the safety precautions for an air show.”

Hansen, a Washington graduate, recently smiled and said, “It’s better now. I think they have lengthened the runway.”

* Former UCLA quarterback Wayne Cook summarizes his visits while grimacing.

“You get off the plane and you are driving two hours through nothing,” said Cook, who is a UCLA radio analyst. “The field is typically a wreck and the fans are just as bad.”

* Texas El Paso Coach Mike Price reminisces about the good times. Of course, he spent 14 seasons as Washington State’s head coach.

“It’s not a sit-on-your-hands, sip-wine, eat-cheese crowd,” Price said. “It’s students who are fired up. They come in early, get on the opposing team early, get on the opposing coaches early.

“Mix in a little snow, and it’s perfect.”

For the Cougars.

About 76 miles south of Spokane, via a profitable two-lane speed trap called Highway 195, Pullman sits near the Washington-Idaho border.

“Just getting to Pullman makes this one of the ugliest trips in college football, hands down,” UCLA defensive end Bruce Davis said, adding, “They have hostile, nasty fans.”

Teams can either fly into the improved Pullman-Moscow Airport or the one in Lewiston, Idaho, which is just as small and 33 miles down a steep grade.

“One year, half our team got stranded for a long time when a bus broke down halfway up the hill from Lewiston,” former UCLA Coach Terry Donahue said.

Said Price: “I love stories like that.”

Most teams go to Spokane, then drive a stretch of road famous for speeding tickets. One story, told by Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson, claims that police in Colfax -- the last town before Pullman -- once gave a speeding ticket to an ambulance.

Said Johnson: “Please, bus down here. Enjoy the rolling hills of the Palouse. Spend a lot time thinking on the long, long trip to Pullman. Wonder if the bus will break down, maybe near Steptoe. Will you be stranded there without cellphone service? It’s all part psyche when a team comes here.”

Little wonder that while the Cougars have played at Auburn, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Nebraska, Tennessee and Michigan in the last 15 years, none of those teams reciprocated with a trip to Pullman.

“I know Pac-10 teams every year would look at their schedule and go, ‘God, we have to go to Pullman this season,’ ” Price said.

This is a small town. There is one high school, one hospital and 13 traffic lights. Cultural events include the Palouse Country Cowboy Poetry Assn.

“ ‘Be careful boys what it is you shoot, a horny toad or a worn-out boot, because Cookie’s looking for new things to chew, and you may find it in your stew.’ That’s a sample of our poetry,” said David Nordquist, who is on the group’s executive committee.

But Nordquist said that while the poetry society meets on Friday, Saturday and Sundays, “Saturdays in the fall we have to choose between poetry and football and football always wins.”

College football is big in Pullman. It is, after all, where announcer Keith Jackson went to school.

“This is not like L.A., where there are a lot of different things to do,” said Mayor Johnson, who is a Washington State professor and the public address announcer at Cougars football and basketball games. “There’s one big thing, and it’s on Saturday.”

Oregon State was ranked 18th when it came to Pullman and lost, 7-0, in 1941. The Beavers didn’t lose again on their way to the Rose Bowl, and Pullman has been a thorn in the side of many ranked teams since.

Ranked teams have entered the city limits 24 times since 1992. Only 12 have left with victories, with five of those coming in overtime. Washington came in ranked fifth in 1992 and lost. UCLA has had three ranked teams upset in Pullman since 1993.

Said Hansen: “It’s our conference’s most rural place. That’s a big change for kids from Los Angeles and the Bay Area.”

Rural has nothing to do with it.

The town has a population of about 25,000, with 49% between the ages of 18 and 24. So cozy, 40,000-seat Martin Stadium takes on an angry-young-man personality.

“A few years back, we had two idiots that actually got into the locker room and yelled obscenities at the team after a loss,” said Cook, who played at UCLA from 1991 to ’94.

Hansen said the conference has not received any complaints about Cougars fans, but former USC coach John Robinson said, “Their fans are obscene.”

Beer, peanuts and anything else handy have been dumped on players between their locker room and the field, players say.

The Bruins had strength coach Karl Jordan -- appropriately nicknamed “Thunder” -- lead them out on the last visit and, “That seemed to help,” UCLA punter Aaron Perez said.

Some of that crowd involvement is OK with Cougars coaches.

“During warmups, it’s kind of a tradition to pick out a couple players on the other team and give it to them,” Price said. “They talk about fannies, or how short they are. . .”

Or. . .

“I remember Rob Walker, who was our backup quarterback, just getting destroyed by a group of students who had had quite a bit to drink,” Cook said. “They were talking about his mother, his sisters, his brothers.”

Inclement weather could add to the discomfort.

Robinson said that when he was an assistant freshman coach at Oregon in 1960, the field was frozen solid. “We ran onto the field in cleats and you could hear, ‘click, click, click.’ They came out in tennis shoes and beat us 63-0.”

Robinson said he searched every sporting goods store on the Palouse, buying up tennis shoes for the Oregon varsity to use the next day.

“When you coach there, you pray for a little snow,” Price said.

UCLA has lost five of its last seven games in Pullman, but there is hope for the Bruins. Washington State uncharacteristically has lost its last four games at home.

Still, the best part of going to Pullman may be leaving Pullman.

Hansen remembers being there for a game when a snowstorm hit. He and his colleagues wanted to leave town afterward and, “We heard there was a train. We thought that would be great. We’d have a nice meal in the dining car, sit back and relax.”

The train arrived and the only seats for passengers were benches in the back of a boxcar.

“We had to ride with the livestock while the engine tried to plow through snow banks,” Hansen said.

Only one thing makes this trip a pleasure.

Said Davis: “If we win, they can call me whatever they want to call me. I’ll leave with a smile on my face.”

chris.foster@latimes.com