I was WSU student president in the ’70s. What I saw then makes UW’s betrayal clear | Opinion

In 1978, Sam Jankovich, the athletic director at Washington State University came to my office. I had been elected student body president, and Sam wanted to talk about expanding the football stadium.

PAC-10 was demanding that WSU needed 10,000 more seats in our stadium, and Sam wanted the student government to support expansion. I pointed out that we had three coaches in three years, our current stadium was rarely full, and we had not had a successful team for some time, even with amazing Jack Thompson as our “Throwin’ Samoan” quarterback.

I mentioned that students had to drive to Spokane for one home game every year, forcing thousands of students to drive 90 miles, watch an evening Spokane game, never drink any alcohol — ha! — and then drive back to Pullman. It was a safety issue. Sam responded that a bigger stadium would bring the annual Spokane game home.

The next day, I headed down to see Dr. Glenn Terrell, the WSU president, to talk about the stadium. He was out of town, so I met with Dr. Wallace Beasley, the executive vice president, who had served as interim president prior to Dr. Terrell being hired. (The Regents named the Beasley Performing Arts/Basketball Coliseum after him as a thank you.)

I explained Sam’s visit, and basically asked why football was so important.

Dr. Beasley looked me straight in the eye and said, “Mark, we must always be part of the PAC-10. It’s bigger than just football.” He went on to explain that being part of PAC-10, with all these other great schools, gives WSU more recognition for the research it is doing, helps it attract higher-quality faculty and graduate students, and helps it secure more grant funds. Member schools get, and give, what he called “collective credibility”. He ended the conversation by stating “WSU must always be part of the PAC-10, always.”

Forty-five years later, five schools, including our sister university, the University of Washington, in a two-hour period, abandoned the PAC-12. Both WSU and the UW are funded by tax dollars, yet the UW allowed itself to be quickly pushed by a private sports broadcasting company to abandon 106 years of history and tradition and also abandon its sister university like a dirty rag.

Dr. Beasley would say that the UW made this decision using too narrow of a lens. I would add that the university did so without a smidgen of consideration of the negative impacts that this decision would have on its sister school. Oh, we hear platitudes from UW leaders about friendship and student-athletes, but in reality, our sister school dumped us and hurt the state.

This UW decision, destroying the PAC-12, will have significant impacts on WSU. And the Legislature needs to study what those impacts are. A joint House/Senate sub-committee should review how this decision was made, and why the process was not more thoughtful, with more public engagement, by us taxpayers and sports fans, who ultimately have to pay part of the cost.

Second, should such a decision be left to any university president and athletic director, who, from this writer’s perspective, wonders if grudges made it easier to injure WSU. After all, under the leadership of WSU President Elson Floyd, while fighting terminal cancer, we created a new WSU medical school, against heavy lobbying from UW. And WSU alums almost single-handedly stopped the UW from securing legislative funding for its new stadium, while the UW AD was there. We argued that private funds were available, and we were proven right.

I’m not sure how, but we need to save the PAC-12, like Dr. Beasley so wisely counseled long ago. And we need to hold the UW accountable.

As a good Cougar, I used to always say that I rooted for the Huskies, except when they played the Cougars.

Because of what the UW just did to us, destroying the PAC-12 in the process, I am really going to enjoy watching Ohio State and Michigan mop them off the field.

This story was originally published August 22, 2023 at 4:00 AM.