It wasn’t just a win for the New York Knicks. Not just a championship for a city that held its breath and waited since 1973 to exhale. That Game 5 victory on Saturday was a final bit of validation for the sports Illuminati figure known as “Worldwide Wes.”

William Wesley is a New Jersey guy all the way. He grew up in Camden, but got his career start working at a sneaker store in Cherry Hill in the 1990s. The story goes that he met lots of famous people in that store, including NBA players. Michael Jordan became a regular customer, then a close friend.

Years later, it came as no surprise to anyone who knew Wesley’s hustle, smarts, and charisma that he ended up in charge of throwing Jordan a birthday party attended by A-list entertainment celebrities and star athletes.

Wesley told me once, “It’s like the six degrees of separation. I’m just friendly. You’re friendly. We get to know people.”

Wesley networked masterfully. He was everywhere, too, hence the “Worldwide” part of his nickname. He began showing up at championship sporting events and popping up in locker rooms. I first met him decades ago in Portland, noting that he was walking around what was then Rose Garden Arena without a credential, dipping into both locker rooms like he owned the place.

He practically did.

“What did you do for work?” I asked him once.

“I’m a mortgage broker,” he shot back.

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Today’s column begins with a fishing boat. The 29-foot Willie Nemesis Big Water Sled is made from all-welded aluminum. It’s specially engineered for big rivers and estuaries, and near-coastal waters.

This particular boat is rigged with a large Mercury outboard engine. The owner of the boat and the guy at the controls is Bill Monroe Jr., who happens to be the son of Bill Sr., the legendary outdoors writer.

See?

We’ve already moved past the boat. We’re onto the people in it. But I want to linger on that vessel for a moment. Because if you walked past the boat at the dock, you might think to yourself, “There’s a perfectly fine fishing boat.” But what I’m focused on today is how the seats in that fishing boat get occupied each spring.

On Friday, two NFL football players were in that boat. They fished alongside their long-time mentor, a guy who worked as a coach, athletic director, and high school principal. They told stories, caught fish, and had an unforgettable day on the Columbia River.

Bill Sr. is a gifted wordsmith and advocate for the outdoors. I worked with him for a couple of decades and admire and respect him. His son, Bill Jr., told me on Saturday morning that his father was blessed with the ability to hook people with written words and bring them to the outdoors.

“I don’t got that,” Bill Jr. told me. “But I take people out there and share the outdoors. That’s what I do. I get them in the boat and take them out.”

Osa Odighizuwa and Samson Ebukam were in Bill Jr.’s boat on Friday. Odighizuwa, a defensive tackle, plays for the San Francisco 49ers. Ebukam, a linebacker, suits up for the Atlanta Falcons. Both attended David Douglas High School, where they had the amazing fortune of crossing paths with Greg Carradine.

Carradine is a lifelong educator and mentor. He coached high school football and took kids under his wing, season after season. He treated them like his own children. It’s what Hall of Fame teachers and principals do, and Carradine is a gold jacket guy in that respect.

Anyway, they were in the boat on Friday. There was a second boat launched at the same time, which had two other NFL players in it. I asked Bill Jr. who the players were. “No idea,” he said. But if you asked Jr. how many bites they had between the two boats on Friday, he knows (19), and he also knows how many fish they kept (5).

“It was a good day of action,” he reported.

Bill Jr. is an expert fisherman and one of the best guides in the Pacific Northwest. It’s how he makes his living. He told me about all the good conversations on his boat on Friday. It was a special experience to observe two NFL players bonding with their former coach — a guy who practically raised them.

“You start to get to know these people,” Bill Jr. told me. “They’re well known. They play a sport professionally, but here they are in the outdoors, getting back to nature. They’re in my boat with someone who taught them how to be men, how to live right, and they’re just wide-eyed being in the river.”

Bill Jr. says the players talked about NFL rule changes and the push from ownership to expand the regular season and play more games. They talked about NFL salaries, the return of Aaron Rodgers, and DK Metcalf, who was suspended last season for two games following a sideline altercation with a fan.

The Metcalf suspension is an interesting topic, fishing trip aside. Missing two games cost him $555,556 in salary, and voided $45 million in guaranteed compensation. Metcalf might still earn that money, but it’s no longer guaranteed because of the suspension and a clause in his contract. It’s a cautionary tale.

Between the bites on the lines, there was a lot to discuss about life, family, and football. Carradine put the trip together. I’ve always said that there are only two kinds of people in the world — unifiers and dividers. You’re either bringing people in your circle closer together, or you’re dividing them. That old football coach and educator always has his arms stretched wide and is always pulling people closer.

As Bill Jr. said, “It was awesome. It was a cool trip. Everyone was happy, we caught lots of fish, and we all got sunburns.”

I want to take a moment to thank all the educators out there, like Mr. Greg Carradine. There are dozens of them in your region this month who will show up at middle school and high school graduations.

I happened to be at a high school graduation ceremony in California on Friday night. The graduates looked thrilled. Their parents looked proud. The teachers wore robes, too, and they bounced about, posing for photographs with the departing students. The teachers looked genuinely excited to be there.

In some cases, they’re just doing some teaching. In other cases, they’re also mentoring, advising, serving as life coaches, father/mother figures, disciplinarians, guardian angels, and even providing financial support.

I know teachers who have paid for summer programs for kids, funded tutoring programs, bought school supplies, shoes, backpacks, clothes, and performed welfare checks at students’ homes when what they saw at school didn’t look or feel right.

I ran into one of my ex-high school classmates at that graduation ceremony I attended on Friday night. Darren Yafai is coaching football and teaching history. He’s in his 34th year of teaching high school students. When I saw him, we hugged and slapped backs. I told him, “You never left high school,” and I meant it as the greatest compliment. We need people like ‘Yaf’ on the front lines, fighting an important fight, guiding young people, just like Mr. Carradine did for decades at David Douglas High.

He gave the world the gift of his time, effort, and energy. He took the time to care. He listened. He provided an example. I’m glad he caught a fish on Friday, but man, he’s been doing that for decades in the classroom.

Mr. Carradine posted something to his social media account a couple of weeks ago. It was a note to parents. It’s worth sharing.

He wrote:

Before I leave you to the rest of your day, I want to say one more thing about that 29-foot boat. It’s made from welded aluminum. Built strong. It’s designed for big water and fishing. But the truth is, the instant that the vessel pushes off from the dock, it detaches from some of the complications of the world.

It’s basically a conversation chamber. The captain and passengers, all alone, at last. It’s not unlike the ride you might take in your car after practice or a game with your own kid. I have three daughters. I typically don’t turn on the radio when they’re in the car. I don’t play music unless they insist. I much prefer the live performance that is happening in the car.

I miss my oldest daughter terribly. She’s away at graduate school. I’ve been thinking lately about the trips we made when she played club volleyball. We traveled to Arizona, Washington, and California. There were endless hotel stays and plane trips. But it was the car rides and conversations I remember most.

Neither of us got a sunburn or caught a fish, but that was great, too.

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Blueprint Sports and the founder of Dam Nation Collective have settled their legal differences. Kyle Bjornstad told me that the $160,000 lawsuit he filed is over.

“I can confirm that the matter has been resolved,” he said.

Is the saga just beginning at Oregon State?

Bjornstad was working in the athletic department with the title of general manager when he resigned last October. He was earning $150,000 a year when he walked into Athletic Director Scott Barnes’ office and threw in the keys.

“I have given OSU the opportunity to make things right,” he told me on Friday. “I want them to take this matter seriously, acknowledge what was done, and be accountable for their actions. That, in my opinion, is a fair and reasonable expectation to have. To this point, they haven’t done that.”

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The Pac-12 Conference is holding a two-day, all-staff meeting at the Bay Area headquarters at Bishop Ranch on Thursday and Friday.

The business of the reconstituted league — and some big questions — are in a countdown as July 1 looms.

That’s the date of the official launch of the new-world Pac-12.

Is expansion still possible for 2027?

What’s the latest with the Pac-12’s direct-to-consumer media offering?

How about football officiating crews? The negotiation with MGM over the conference basketball tournaments in Las Vegas? What about football media day?

Bylaws? Governance? The league’s stance about Oregon State’s lightning-rod Week 2 football game vs. Texas Tech?

Among the things I’ve learned:

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An entire side of the eight-team College World Series bracket features Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas. It’s an all-SEC party. Another Southeastern Conference member, Ole Miss, is still alive on the other side of the tournament bracket, too.

The presidents and athletic directors in that conference will slap backs and celebrate the quasi-SEC invitational going on in Omaha this week. Still, it raises questions about bias, the tilt of geography, TV viewership, fan interest, and the overall health of college athletics.

Is this out of hand?

The College Football Playoff hasn’t been geographically balanced, either. Outside of the Oregon Ducks, does anyone in the West consistently have a chance to matter on the national stage?

I’ll dive deeper into that in a bit, but first, some additional questions: Why has the region been marginalized? And how come college athletics leaders and TV networks aren’t more worried about wobbling geography?

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The new guy in charge of the athletic department will be introduced on Tuesday in Corvallis. When Kevin Griffin takes the stage in a late-morning news conference in a room at Reser Stadium, everything will be in place.

Tables will be covered with linens.

Chairs will be arranged in rows.

Orange-and-black decorations will be put on the walls.

What the first-time athletic director also walks into is a college ecosystem that is in complete disarray, drunk on money, and rife with lawsuits.

The game plan is simple. Don’t like the NCAA’s eligibility ruling? Sue. Don’t want to follow the transfer portal rules? Litigate. Want out of that NIL contract? Lawyer up.

Griffin will spend some time on Tuesday telling us about himself and sharing his vision for Oregon State athletics. My first question relates to what the Beavers’ new athletic director plans to do about the Texas Tech game on Sept. 12.

Sometimes a moment of truth arrives an instant before you step through a door. Certainly, for a first-time, first-year AD, this is a complicated one.

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I got a question about hair this week.

The Monday Mailbag always delivers a wide range of questions. I was also asked about the future of March Madness, Oregon’s ongoing national championship quest, Washington State’s media-rights payout, Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould’s thinking, MLB to PDX, bad hotels, and the Pac-12’s projected media rights revenue.

Hydroplane races coming to a river near you?

What is UNLV thinking when it comes to realignment?

Will the Ducks schedule tougher non-conference games in football?

I appreciate all who submit questions. The variety this week is wild. The range is impressive. I’m grateful for those who submitted questions. Next week, I’ll do something very special with the mailbag for subscribers only.

Thank you for reading and sharing this publication with friends, family, and co-workers. If you’d like to gift someone a subscription, have at it. And a big thanks to those who donate paid subscriptions to seniors on a fixed budget.

Onto the questions:

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They glared from the batter’s box on Saturday. One hitter even stuck his tongue out and wagged it at the pitcher. The Texas Longhorns thumped their chests, gestured, flipped their bats, pointed, and shook their heads at balls thrown out of the strike zone.

It was a nine-inning mock job.

Had J-Lo or Madonna been at the Austin Super Regional, they might have declared the Texas act over the top. Kanye might have leaned in and offered, “Maybe, dial it back a touch, fellas?” Bob Gibson would have said nothing. He’d have just shaved off some mustaches with 101-mph fastballs. And Pedro Martinez would have surely broken someone’s ribs for all the showboating, chirping, and curtain calls.

No way around it: the Texas Longhorns are arrogant, and cocky, showy, obnoxious, and, um, also, they’re very, very good at baseball.

There is only one solution available to the Oregon Ducks.

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He might have been an engineer. Or maybe a mathematician. Tammi Huber is certain that her son, Jack, would have pursued his baseball career had osteosarcoma not killed him at the age of 14.

“He was magical on the mound,” she said.

Jack would be 22 now. He’d have graduated from college. He might have a girlfriend, be pursuing a graduate degree, or maybe even pitching in the minor leagues.

Eight years ago this month, Jack Schumacher lost his battle with bone cancer. He’d been through a mess of medical procedures. A surgery took a chunk of muscle from his back. Another left him without a pelvis. His teenage body was riddled with tumors, and in his final minutes, his mother crawled into the hospital bed with him and held him.

I write about Jack every spring.

I won’t stop.

I can’t.

My heart — and his mother — won’t let me. Tammi sent a text the other day that read, “Spring is here, baseball season, and LEGO time!!”

In his final months, during Jack’s visits to the children’s hospital, her son noted that they’d run out of LEGO sets to give to children. He was worried that other kids, ones like him, wouldn’t have something to distract them from the chemo cocktails, the pain, and so much somber news.

“Mom,” he said before his death, “I’m going to make it a goal to collect 100 LEGO sets for those kids.”

Jack smashed that goal before he died. Every late spring, to honor her son, Tammi sets up an Amazon wish list and hopes people join Jack’s mission. Every year, readers of this column donate, and boxes of LEGO sets pile up on her doorstep. (Those who wish to help can buy a set and select “Tammi Huber” as the shipping address.)

“This is the ninth year,” his mom told me this week, “we’ve delivered more than 6,500 boxes of LEGOs.”

My kids are growing up. The middle daughter turns 12 this weekend. The youngest is 10. My oldest is in graduate school. It’s a blur, isn’t it? One day, you’re on the living room floor watching them crawl for the first time.

The next?

Eighth-grade graduation. Then, high school. And you’re at a college graduation, taking photographs on a sunny day, wondering where the years went. What Tammi Huber reminds us every spring isn’t just about the legacy of her son. It’s about your kids and mine, too. Hug them. Love them. Talk with them. Get down on the carpet with them when they’re little and stay there as long as you can.

She’s got three other children, but Tammi makes it her mission to keep the memory of that fourth kid, Jack, just as alive. In her mind, he’s forever frozen at age 14, gritting through unimaginable pain, collecting LEGOs, trying to help other kids.

“To visualize him as a man, it’s sad,” she told me this week. “But it’s incredible too. His name continues. His legacy carries on.”

I’m not sure if you needed this column today. But every late May or early June, I smile when I get a message from Tammi. We record an audio interview for my show. Tammi talks with a mother’s strength about what Jack went through.

What was Jack thinking with his LEGO drive?

His mind was on other children?

While he was dying?

How right did that kid get it?

Said Tammi: “Knowing that children are up at that hospital, suffering from whatever illness they’re going through, and doctors, and nurses, and all the tests and needles, and those kinds of things, just having a distraction, having a box of LEGOs, and something to build and use fine-motor skills, Jack understood that.”

Jack’s life had a sobering end. Every time Tammi describes the final months of his life, I get glassy eyes. It’s unimaginable and far away, that is, until you hear her explain it.

One time, she told me about a coach he had in Little League. A former minor league ballplayer named Jerry McMullen had taken an interest in Jack’s arm.

McMullen had pitched at Portland State in the 1990s and was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 26th round. He played seven seasons, pitching 206 games in places such as Eugene, Tri-City, Sarasota, Fla., and Bridgewater, N.J.

McMullen, who topped out in Double-A, helped Jack learn how to pitch.

In the final months of his life, Jack was in a wheelchair. One day, he picked up the phone and called McMullen. The kid asked if he might throw one last bullpen session. Jack badly missed baseball.

They met at an indoor facility. Jack showed up with his glove, a walker, and his wheelchair. The coach brought a bucket of baseballs. Together, they tried to feel normal again.

Jack threw from the wheelchair at first. Then, after enough of that, he did something that surprised everyone.

He rose to his feet and tossed a few balls from a standing position. You can hear the caution and inspiration in his mother’s voice in the background of the video — “Ohhhhhhh Jack,” she says.

Uneasy, just for an instant.

Then, understanding.

“What’s the worst that could have happened?” she told me once.

I spliced together the two videos. One shows Jack throwing when he was healthy, and another shows him in the wheelchair. His coach, McMullen, sits on a bucket in both videos, holding a catcher’s mitt, giving the kid encouragement and a target.

In the first pass of the video, I always find myself looking at the kid on the left. He’s healthy and alive. Jack had great velocity and long arms and legs. He’d have made a terrific high school or college pitcher.

Every subsequent pass in the video, however, I lock into the kid on the right. He’s not well, physically. I can’t take my eyes off him. I watch that kid pull himself up just nine seconds into the video, rise to his feet, and throw a few baseballs, just like old times.

He was a warrior, that kid.

“It was just us, getting away from things,” McMullen told me. “Watching him go through this was like somebody shoving an ice pick in your heart.”

There’s a stripe of beauty in that scene, though, isn’t there?

A kid playing catch one last time with his coach?

Simple things win, don’t they?

Jack Schumacher died a few weeks after throwing that final pitch. He was 14. His mother and siblings grieved. I admire the beautiful tribute they’ve wrung from that tragedy. They’ve taken their broken hearts and turned them into something good and redemptive. Every spring, they collect boxes of LEGOs in Jack’s honor and help other kids just like him.

They’ll never stop.

They hope you won’t, either.

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Senator Maria Cantwell was addressing Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould during Wednesday’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing when she dropped a newsy little nugget.

“Ms. Gould,” the senator said, “you’ve been very polite about this. I mean, the bottom line is WSU had a $35 million hole blown in their $85 million college budget.”

Cantwell went on to say, “WSU, instead of having a $35 million media budget, has a, I think, $10 or $12 million media budget, so are we just going to let this continue to be this arms race?”

I missed the question.

I was distracted by the dollar figures Cantwell was throwing around. She was seemingly lifting the curtain back on the new-world Pac-12’s media-rights distribution.

I got on the phone with Gould on Thursday to dig deeper. Was the senator really breaking news on the media deal with The CW, CBS, and USA Sports? Did she misspeak? Or open the books in a way nobody in the conference has yet been willing to do?

My inquiry with Gould sparked a larger 1-on-1 philosophical discussion about the Pac-12’s new media rights deal, Pac-12 Enterprises, and the importance of overall conference distributions.

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No leaks. No embarrassments. No clumsy search-firm representatives slapping backs and making jokes with the finalists in some downtown hotel lobby.

President Jayathi Murthy demanded an airtight hiring process. Everyone associated with the athletic director opening at Oregon State University signed non-disclosure agreements, including the five sitting head coaches who met with prospective candidates.

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I wasn’t surprised by most of what I saw and heard on Wednesday when a line of expert witnesses testified in front of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Nick Saban was predictably strong.

Teresa Gould was expectedly smart.

Gordon Gee was amusing, as always.

I sat at the kitchen table, watching the hearing on my laptop. My 10-year-old daughter ate breakfast beside me, eavesdropping on the festivities, while she crunched on an apple slice. None of what I got from the spectacle was surprising, except for one little question that hit me like a bag of bricks.

“What,” my daughter asked, “are they trying to do?”

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Saint Mary’s College doesn’t have a football program.

Not yet, anyway.

And not the kind that college presidents typically talk about.

President Roger Thompson joined me for a 1-on-1 interview on Tuesday, in which he said the WCC should lead the charge when it comes to women’s flag football.

“I want to be the first conference in the country that does women’s flag football,” Thompson said. “… I probably shouldn’t have said it because someone is going to beat us to it. It’s an emerging sport. It’s coming to the Olympics in 2028. Maybe it’s time we get Snoop Dogg out here talking about it for the WCC.”

Thompson was in Los Angeles for the WCC spring meetings. He gave a wide-ranging interview in the wake of Saint Mary’s stunning performance in the NCAA baseball tournament. The Gaels upset the overall No. 1 seed UCLA on Friday, then knocked the Bruins out of the bracket with an extra-inning victory on Sunday.

“With all the changes that are happening in college athletics, it’s easy to forget about the mid-majors,” Thompson said. “That was our moment to say, ‘With all the things changing in college athletics, it’s still young people going out and battling for nine or 10 innings.’ Our lineup is filled with guys that power schools didn’t take a look at. It was a statement for us.”

Thompson said he’s fearful that the power conferences will look at the upsets in the NCAA baseball tournament and propose changes to the format. He cited the relative certainty of the NCAA basketball tournament.

“That’s turned into pretty much chalk,” he said.

Thompson also talked about the final meeting he had with men’s basketball coach Randy Bennett.

“I turned to my wife after he left and said, ‘He’s gone...’”

Thompson spent 14 years working in administration at the University of Oregon. At one point in the interview, he sent up a warning flare for all of college athletics.

“We have something really powerful in college sports,” Thompson said. “If we’re not careful, we’re going to wreck it. We’re going to destroy the very thing that brings eyeballs to the NCAA Tournament in March. I’m worried that nobody is looking out for that piece of it. We have a smaller voice than some of those big conferences, but there are a lot of us.”

Watch the full interview:

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I last saw Rick Adelman several summers ago. He was wearing shorts and flip flops, and rummaging around the beer cooler on the back wall at the CVS Pharmacy in downtown Lake Oswego.

He emerged from the cooler with a six-pack of domestic beer, took one look at me, and smiled. We exchanged pleasantries. He went on his way. And I ended up behind the former NBA coach in the check-out line.

The coach paid for his beer and headed out the door. When I stepped up for my turn, the clerk leaned in and said, “Hey, you know who that is? That’s Rick Adelman — best coach the Blazers ever had.”

Adelman died on Monday.

He was 79.

Adelman had a gifted basketball mind. He coached the Trail Blazers to two NBA Finals. He got beaten by the bad-boy Detroit Pistons in five games, and two years later, had the misfortune of being matched up against Michael Jordan and the Bulls. That series went six games.

Adelman never won the NBA title. He sits just off Dr. Jack Ramsay’s shoulder if titles are what you count. I’m not arguing with the pharmacy clerk. What Adelman accomplished was outstanding. But I’m not here today to debate coaching legacies, I’m here for the stories.

I’ve got some rich ones.

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The questions in this week’s mailbag were wide-ranging and probing.

Big Pac-12 football games on CBS? Pac-12 baseball? And how good are the Oregon Ducks at baseball?

A reader asked which Big Ten football team will have the best new playcaller. Another wanted to know if Tom Dundon learned something in the NHL that he can use in the NBA. I was asked about the Hillsboro Hops, UConn football, a lawsuit against an Oregon football player, and more.

Thanks to all who share this publication with friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers with a full gift subscription. And thanks to those who donate paid subscriptions to seniors on a fixed budget.

The mailbag…

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It felt like a fork in the Civil War road, didn’t it?

Oregon beat Oregon State, 4-1, in Sunday’s Eugene Regional final. The Ducks headed one direction, where they’ll advance to the Super Regional and play at the University of Texas.

OSU will head home to Corvallis, do some soul searching, and strategize for play in the new-world Pac-12 next season. The same goes for Washington State, which flew back to Pullman with some new momentum.

What will it take for Oregon to reach Omaha and the College World Series? What shortcomings does OSU need to address in the offseason? How can WSU take the next step forward?

I have thoughts:

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Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould will be a witness at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday. I’m eager to hear what she’ll say and glad she’s on the list to give testimony, given the Pac-12’s survival saga.

Were the Big Ten (Fox) and SEC (ESPN) plotting to keep streamers such as Apple and Amazon out of their sports playground? Did that media-rights chess game play a role in the downfall of the Pac-12?

I have thoughts on small-town handshakes, the success of the Portland Fire, and the joy of seeing Oregon State, Washington State, and Oregon all playing NCAA Tournament baseball on Sunday.

Emptying my notebook…

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EUGENE — It was the middle of the seventh inning on Saturday night. The PK Park crowd was thumping. The Oregon Ducks were on their way to a 4-0 victory over Washington State in the Eugene Regional. I looked out the open window of the press box and saw a familiar face looking back from the balcony to my left.

The guy was calling my name.

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” he crowed.

It was Ken O’Neil, long-time booster, donor, and Duck loyalist. He been a long-time member of Phil Knight’s inner sanctum. The 89-year-old guy bleeds green and insists on using the stadium stairs.

On Saturday night, O’Neil was sitting behind UO Athletic Director Rob Mullens, and two seats away was Karl Scholz, the university president, and between them was Michael Doherty, who spent nearly four decades as a high-ranking executive at Nike. Doherty and O’Neil carpooled to the game from the Portland area.

Doherty was behind the wheel.

“If I let him drive, we’d end up in Yreka,” he joked.

Dana Altman showed up on that balcony, too, in the middle innings. The men’s basketball coach at Oregon stood behind his university president. What I’m saying is, this UO baseball event drew a buzz and crowd that is typically reserved for a big home football game. And the Ducks are now a single victory away from advancing to another Super Regional.

One small step?

A giant leap?

I asked Oregon coach Mark Wasikowski how he’d approach Sunday. In the Ducks way will either be a rematch with the Cougars, who ooze resilience, or a date with the rival Beavers, who play well historically off the ropes.

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I’m not ready to ignite panic and declare there’s a problem brewing with Oregon State baseball. I need a much larger sample size. But I am ready to say one very distinct and definitive thing about Washington State pitcher Nick Lewis.

It’s this — wow.

Lewis was terrific on Friday, throwing only 103 pitches in a complete-game victory. The Cougars beat the Beavers, 3-2. It sets up a do-or-die Saturday for OSU that leaves the three-time national champion facing elimination.

Earlier this week, WSU coach Nathan Choate told me he thought everyone was prematurely penciling Oregon State into the winner’s bracket. Ducks-Beavers Civil War game on Saturday, right? Right?

Choate reminded me, “We DO have the Mountain West pitcher of the year.”

Is something trending downward with Oregon State baseball?

Hold that thought.

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Judge Gary Libey and his wife, Trudy, just got back from their first trip to Europe. They took one of those Viking cruises — Barcelona to Venice. In a few months, he told me on Friday, they’ll take another cruise in the Panama Canal.

Oregon State and Washington State are playing in an NCAA Tournament baseball game at the Eugene Regional on Friday. It’s a big deal. A “Pac-2” postseason matchup. And if there were true justice, the retired judge who sat on the bench in Whitman County Superior Court in late 2023 would throw out the first pitch.

What saved the Pac-12?

Guts. Grit. A 108-year-old brand. Two land-grant universities that refused to go away, for sure. Some high-priced lawyers. The presidents and athletic directors at WSU and OSU, of course. And a conference commissioner, Teresa Gould, who wouldn’t quit.

If you and I are spitballing this debate and having this conversation on the lido deck of a Viking cruise ship, I’d argue that Libey played a pivotal part. Maybe THE biggest role. They shouldn’t stop with him throwing out a ceremonial pitch. Gary and Trudy should never have to pay for a ticket to a Pac-12 sporting event.

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