Sausage Links, Pac 10 edition

It's been a busy year for University of Oregon graduates Jill Hazelbaker and Tucker Bounds. Recently named the "Dynamic Duck duo" by The Oregonian, Bounds and Hazelbaker are two of the McCain campaign's top communications officers — the Republicans' first wave of defense against Democratic attacks. As reporter Jeff Mapes points out, it's not an easy job. ...

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One man's one-man team

Biding time until coach Tyrone Willingham is gone, cranky University of Washington football fans at least get to watch an NFL quarterback prospect excel. Jake Locker does so in spite of those around him.

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Sausage Links, cougar-hunting edition

Praise the Lord and release the hounds — because our good state Legislature has enacted a law which makes it legal once again to use dogs to hunt cougars. Now, I didn't even know cougar hunting was legal in Washington — minus Cougars wearing crimson — but apparently, it is. While the bill was actually passed by the Legislature in February, the Department of Fish and Wildlife will hold a public meeting on Friday to discuss whether the pilot program should continue for another three years.

Meanwhile, Micheal Reitz of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation has compiled a list of some other curious laws enacted by the Washington Legislature this year. My personal favorite: Violators may face up to $1,000 or up to a year in jail for selling raw or unprocessed huckleberries without a permit.

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As the Sonics leave town, it may help the arts

In all the reporting about the Sonics decision, we tend to overlook the intense clamoring over a taxing source, the so-called "stadium taxes," that bedevils the politics. A lot of groups want to lay claim to those taxes, which are supposed to go away after the Kingdome, Safeco Field, and Qwest Field are paid off, but are really catnip to politicians for their pet causes. The taxes have two attractions: they are not really an "increase" if you just extend their life, and they fall mostly on visitors, who don't vote locally.

One of the main supplicants is the arts. Thereby hangs an interesting story.

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Chopp, Chopp! The method in the speaker's maddening ways

How Frank Chopp rules Olympia, and why he left the Sonic saviors sputtering. He's become a classic political boss, but he also remains true to the values of helping the poor.

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Not just the Sonics want those stadium taxes

The showdown in Olympia over the Sonics is much more than a shoving match between Speaker Frank Chopp, a populist who likes to defy bailouts for sports owners, and the Seattle establishment, which wants the team to buttress Seattle Center and tourism interests and for reasons of civic pride. A bigger issue is the years-long clamoring for a taxing source that might get away. Those are the so-called "stadium taxes," a mixture of taxes on car rentals, restaurants and bars, hotel rooms, and local sales tax. The money is all generated locally in King County, but instead of going into the Olympia general fund, it gets rebated back to pay off construction of Safeco Field and Qwest Field. And they are supposed to expire as the stadiums are paid off in the next decade.

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The Huskies had the three-pointer down this year, but twos and ones, not so much

As the University of Washington Husky men's basketball team heads to the Bay Area this week for two of its final three league games, maybe players ought to be thinking about signs of a brighter future rather than a less-than-successful past. The most conspicuous sign being waved in the student section of Hec Edmundson Pavilion last Saturday, Feb. 23, read: "Thanks, Ryan, for three years of threes."

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Featured on TV this weekend, it's the NBA in decline

The ongoing paradox about the National Basketball Association's annual All-Star Game is that defense is considered offensive. That's why the final score of the Sunday, Feb. 17, spectacle (TNT, 5:30 p.m.) may resemble the Obama-Clinton delegate count.

Here and elsewhere, the predicament facing the NBA and its gradually failing franchises ought to underscore (if such a term is even appropriate for an NBA all-star game) the desperation and absurdity of staging a weekend of "nothing's-wrong-here" frivolity. This would be the case even if it weren't all happening in, of all places, New Orleans.

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Another arena, more history

Another standing-room-only crowd was crammed into yet another local arena Sunday, Feb. 10, and Barack Obama had nothing to do with it. Many of us were at Hec Edmundson Pavilion to witness the best team in Pac-10 men’s basketball, few of us imagining that it would prove to be the Washington Huskies. The Dawgs may well have the proverbial rude awakening on their Valentine's Day date with Oregon, but for now the overachievers will always have a nearly wire-to-wire 71-61 win over the UCLA Bruins for boasting purposes years from now.

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Err a 'Zona

Some of us huddling in our Northwest homes Saturday, Jan. 26, awaiting the evidence of yet another questionable snow warning were warmed as noon approached with the prospect of the University of Washington Husky-Arizona Wildcat men's basketball game promised on Fox Sports Northwest. Fans didn't count on a broadcast delay of more than half an hour while the network finished coverage of the two-overtime North Carolina-Maryland women's tiff, which doesn't traditionally draw a lot of audience interest in the Pacific Northwest.

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Hoop hopes are high for the Huskies, but the Sonics seem like goners

The University of Washington men's team is showing promising signs of turning around the season. The Sonics seem to have promised to perform as poorly as possible to hasten an exit to Oklahoma.

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Ed Hansen's other UW involvement

University of Washington athletic boosters and regular fans have inundated President Mark Emmert, Athletic Director Todd Turner, and football Coach Ty Willingham with hate e-mail over the Huskies' abysmal performance. So found the Seattle Times from a public records request.

Of the 1,000 or so e-mail messages was Ed Hansen's pledge of $100,000 to fund a law school scholarship if Willingham was terminated and another $100,000 to also fund a law school scholarship if Turner was terminated.

Time to take note of Ed Hansen's other tie to UW.

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Free-thrown for a loss

Classes start Monday, Jan. 7, at the University of Washington. Perhaps profs should receive a campuswide edict to make all students first report to a gym, where the first one to shoot better than five for 13 from the free-throw line would receive a full scholarship and a place on the men's basketball team.

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Rick redux — and now redemption

I've always thought that the loathing for Rick Neuheisel was out of proportion to his misdeeds. Yes, the former Husky football coach broke rules and definitely lied about his interest in a job elsewhere. He earned the nickname Slick Rick even before he came to Washington.

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2007 in review: 10 to remember from the wide world of sports

It was come and go time for sports stars, coaches and of course, a whole team.

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If not for television, a W for UW

Those of us who were present with two eyes ranged from the hoi polloi to the highest echelons of state public life: at least one former guv (Booth Gardner) and the University of Washington's omnipresent Mark Emmert, "one of the best [college] presidents in the whole damn country," according to UW regent Bill Gates Sr., borrowing from sports-programming parlance. It didn't matter, however, that the best and worst of us who were two-eyed witnesses Saturday at Hec Edmundson Pavilion thought Justin Dentmon's buzzer lay-up beat the clock. All that mattered was the judgment of a dispassionate cyclops: the television camera recording the event for Fox Sports Northwest. Even after the game refs allowed the scoreboard at the UW basketball court to read UW 76, Pittsburgh 75, the officiating crew members had another gander at the recorded last play. Then they had a few more.

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Willingham keeps his job as UW football coach

The UW is keeping football coach Ty Willingham, who has a 11-25 record in three seasons as head coach and who is paid $1.4 million a year. According to the P-I, the Huskies under Willingham has had two of the worse defenses in team history. This year, the defense gave up 446 yards per game.

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The UW prez now examines Ty Willingham's 11-25 record

The University of Washington Huskies football offense looked formidable the first time it was shown this season, and such was the case on the final occasion. Unfortunately, first appearances, as many divorcees and used-car buyers know, can be deceiving. Yes, the "O" looked pretty promising that first time out: last spring at the annual intra-squad game. The last time, Saturday night, Dec. 1, in Honolulu, the Dawgs hustled up a 21-0 lead against unbeaten Hawaii, mainly on turnovers and an impressive running game. But the now 12-0 Hawaii Warriors prevailed as an intoxicatingly hot Saturday night in paradise became a cold-sober Sunday morning in Seattle. The Huskies failed to score during the second half, losing 35-28 and finishing another bad-Dawg season 4-9.

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The Huskies and Hawks both stuff some Bears

Both teams gain some redemption with wins at home over the weekend. The Dawgs enter next week's Apple Cup at 4-7, while the Seahawks lead the NFC West with a 6-4 record.

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Shouldn't we just pay college football players?

Seeing another Husky risk paralysis is a good time to remember that in big-time college sports, everyone gets money except those taking risks on the field.

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