Didn't he used to be the star sports columnist for the Seattle Times?
Seems to tweet and blog a lot about Gonzaga basketball while firing potshots at WSU.
Not sure why an famous alum seems to hsve such a negative outlook on his alma mater.
Bud Withers is a Coug?
- Thread starter PeteTheChop
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Didn't he used to be the star sports columnist for the Seattle Times?
Seems to tweet and blog a lot about Gonzaga basketball while firing potshots at WSU.
Not sure why an famous alum seems to hsve such a negative outlook on his alma mater.
Some people just can't ditch the lovable loser mentality; you know, lost innocence and the such?
Doesn't report on Arco, doesn't report on the team's consistently high apr... Blanchette redux.
Picture looks like an old alcoholic and a bitter one .
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Old news. I don't think he's an alum, but could be wrong. He did write a book on the virtues of GU basketball though, so he's another GU/Few fluffer. "Bravehearts: The Against-All-Odds Rise of Gonzaga Basketball", look it up if you want to vomit.
He made the right choice to retire. He ran a terrible article in the Times about attrition at WSU back in 2012 comparing WSU to UCLA and ASU since new coaches had been hired there as well. Without doing the actual research on departures from those schools he took the numbers that the coaches gave him, then compared it to the departures at WSU. Typical mail it in article.
I think Bud also felt like Leach had somehow fooled him into being an accomplice after the 2012 Utah game too, where Bud went ahead and asked the linemen questions after Leach sent them to the press room.
He was an obnoxious self hating Coug for the Seattle times.
A lot of people wonder why WSU has been so bad in the past (excluding the bright Price years and early Doba)
and the answer really boils down to crappy attitude and some sort of weird obnoxious self loathing celebration of mediocrity.
Bud Withers
Blanchette
Jim Walden
The CougEd’s
The Jim Moore
etc.
As Leach said about WSU early on when he got here that it kind of was a “country club” atmosphere where entitlement ruled and narcissism is given a priority over success and hard work.
WSU as a program was an embarrassment and in comes Leach and what he’s done given the resources compared to the competition is exceptional.
6 bowls in 8 years when we hadn’t been to a one in a decade.
The highest single season win record in program history.
Beat USC 2/3 times
Oregon 4 times in a row
Stanford 4 times I think now
Now while obviously Mike Price taking us to the rose bowl is the highest post season accomplishment for a coach there is serious debate now on who is the best coach in our history.
it was in Price’s 9th season that we reached the rose bowl. Leach achieved the highest win total in program history in year 7.
highest AP rank in the first 8 seasons? Leach with an AP ranking of #7
Seasons under bowl eligible (5 wins or less) in the first 8 years? Price had 5. Leach just 2 seasons under 6 wins in 8 years.
And here we have “journalists” b*tching about a guy who has done all that and harass him on why he hasn’t beaten the instate rival who has an athletic budget that is 50 million dollars more... every single year.
fifty million dollars annually is the difference in spending on athletics between UW and WSU... and they ask “why you no beat them?...uh why you no beat them? Duh duh dum”
this would be the equivalent of asking Blanchette why the Spokesman doesn’t outsell the Seattle Times. Why isn’t the Spokesman beat the Seattle times in circulation? Come on Blanchette... why isn’t the Spokesman making more in revenue than the Seattle times Blanchette?
Wow...I am in lofty status.
This is big boy football. Of course people are going to ask about beating your instate rival. Hell, Harbaugh is an alum and I guarantee you some are looking to run him out of town for losing to Ohio State like they have been. What was the old staying? Unicorns and ribbons?
But Tron, here is a question for you. How come Phelps "technique" of making his dlineman quicker didn't work this year? And remind again how combining classes and judging their win/loss record is the proper way to evaluate an individual class and the respective talents? Hey we won 11 games in 2018 and that was due in part to a healthy class in 2014. Right?
So many that don't look favorably at CML always bring up his pay. They subtly bring up that fact that he's a paid State Employee that shouldn't act like that. But lets look at that concept at face value.
6 bowls in 8 years: WSU gets a payoff on that. Each bowl is different but last year, because WSU went to the Alamo Bowl, the conference received $7.975 million dollars. I believe that's evenly distributed with WSU getting a bigger chunk. But lets say an average of $300,000 for each bowl. CML has brought in $1.8 mil to the school, with bowl games alone. That's conservative, by the way.
Now here's a harder one to prove but the saying, "Sports is the front porch to any University or college" implies sports events are similar to advertising for schools. I'd agree with that sentiment. Just in 1 year, from 2017 to 2018 WSU attendance, JUST IN FRESHMAN ATTENDANCE, jumped 15.3%. Can all of that be attributed to CML or sports in general? Probably not. So lets cut that in half, just to get a number. We can take away or give more but half is a decent start. With $27,500 being the yearly cost, that equates to $8,305,000... in 1 year. That doesn't go to Athletics but can be attributed to sports, to some degree.
There's other avenues of revenue that having a successful sports dept adds to but I'll just leave it at those 2.
Bottom line, it's about CML being blunt and non-PC. I'll leave the politics out of it but I've got think it tints this concept. But lets just leave it at "non-PC"... Because it isn't about the money. If they think it's about the money, they are not thinking or they are ignoring it or hoping no one else thinks about it. They don't like him on a personality level. They just don't want to admit that because it seems petty and judgmental. Which it is. For them to even bring up his pay in any way is a distraction, a falsehood and should be called out immediately, IMHO.
6 bowls in 8 years: WSU gets a payoff on that. Each bowl is different but last year, because WSU went to the Alamo Bowl, the conference received $7.975 million dollars. I believe that's evenly distributed with WSU getting a bigger chunk. But lets say an average of $300,000 for each bowl. CML has brought in $1.8 mil to the school, with bowl games alone. That's conservative, by the way.
Now here's a harder one to prove but the saying, "Sports is the front porch to any University or college" implies sports events are similar to advertising for schools. I'd agree with that sentiment. Just in 1 year, from 2017 to 2018 WSU attendance, JUST IN FRESHMAN ATTENDANCE, jumped 15.3%. Can all of that be attributed to CML or sports in general? Probably not. So lets cut that in half, just to get a number. We can take away or give more but half is a decent start. With $27,500 being the yearly cost, that equates to $8,305,000... in 1 year. That doesn't go to Athletics but can be attributed to sports, to some degree.
There's other avenues of revenue that having a successful sports dept adds to but I'll just leave it at those 2.
Bottom line, it's about CML being blunt and non-PC. I'll leave the politics out of it but I've got think it tints this concept. But lets just leave it at "non-PC"... Because it isn't about the money. If they think it's about the money, they are not thinking or they are ignoring it or hoping no one else thinks about it. They don't like him on a personality level. They just don't want to admit that because it seems petty and judgmental. Which it is. For them to even bring up his pay in any way is a distraction, a falsehood and should be called out immediately, IMHO.
Pardon me while I turn around and bend over so he can kiss my....
When I click on that pic in his Twitter profile, I just start wondering why I'd ever give a damn about what a homeless guy in a baseball cap thinks about Leach. Judging by the paucity of replies or other engagement on the tweet at issue, I don't think anyone other than a handful of Gonzaga and UW fans, and maybe five Cougs, even is seeing it.
Bud has made an assumption that Leach calling out Blanchette is embarrassing to WSU. Faulty assumption.
Glad Cougar
Glad Cougar
Bud Withers attended and graduated from WSU. But, he is one of those WSU graduates that wishes he were a dawg. He took many opportunities to write negative stories about WSU. He would take things out of context to trash the Cougars or he would be lazy and just write half the story, the negative part.
From this point forward can we please stop referring to Blanchette by his name or initials. So in support of coach Leach and in defiance of all the sports writers, who arrogantly think Leach actually owes them an apology, here are my thoughts. We will now refer to this sports writer from the Spokesman as “the sanctimonious troll” , “TST” , or “The ST”, or if you come up with a better name, other than his real name, works for me too.
What is really embarrassing is old guys like this one do not know how to scrub their twitter account.
Just a really quick perusal and what pops up on Sep. 7th ( yeah but he is an unbiased observer right ?)
Just a really quick perusal and what pops up on Sep. 7th ( yeah but he is an unbiased observer right ?)
90% of the media is liberal, of course they hate CML because of his outspoken political views. Every other tweet by this WSU hater is taking a pot shot at our President. Rosebud is a washed up, used box of Depends.
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Except TST hated Price and Erickson and Walden and on and on. Not all of them were close to being a wingnut. Nor were they outspoken, that I remember. They were Cougar coaches at the time he hated them, so I don’t think it’s a lib vs con thing.
Leach nailed it when he accused TST if having a personal agenda against the Cougs. Walden or someone stole his girlfriend or kicked his dog.
Not to disagree with your statement M.I.
Just going by an old neighbor who told me (frequently) he attended WSU with Mr. Withers.
He would always gripe if BW wrote something in the Times that was negative toward WSU.
My neighbor definitely wasn't a "self hating Coug" who Coug-A-Tron and everyone else here dislikes so much.
Snowflake boomer is triggered!
You whine about this as if you and every other right wing lunatic didn't spend 8 years crying about Obama and 25 years crying about the Clintons.
Bud Withers did go to WSU, he falls into the Dick Baird category of Cougs, went to WSU, because no one else gave them a chance. Had success at WSU. And they have been trashing the place ever since they left. And kiss the behind of all the people that previously rejected them.
He's an Eastern Washington guy WSU didn't want, at a time when we handed out scholarships to WA kids like candy.
He was super mean to TST. Super mean.
I think he's actually referring to the Obama video, but who knows.
I would bet a dollar he grew up dreaming of playing for UW and not WSU.
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