Chun's Choosing

Garth Meyer, Gazette Reporter | Feb 20, 20200

WSU Athletic Director Patrick Chun has been in the job for just over two years. In that time, his two biggest decisions have drawn a contrast with his predecessor.

Chun's choice of Hawaii’s Nick Rolovich for the new WSU football coach made the case, then Kyle Smith and the basketball team's work this winter has underlined what it can all mean.

Both Chun and Bill Moos hired a football coach and a basketball coach.

Moos went with established names for both.

Safe choices, the type of picks where if they don't work out, no one can really fault you. Mike Leach, with his controversies, won a bunch of games at Texas Tech and went to a bunch of bowls (when they still were somewhat hard to make it to one). So he ultimately was a guarded selection. For basketball, Moos hired Ernie Kent, well-established, who took Oregon to the Elite Eight a few years before.

Kent didn't work out, but it was not embarrassing to Moos because essentially it was not his choice – other people had taken risks on Ernie Kent, giving him opportunities to prove up, as for Mike Leach. The two coaches had already succeeded at this level when Moos called.

Chun, on the other hand, has made his own choice.

He's using his own insight, his own instinct to discover someone new. To create a brand new coach, or two, at the Pac-12 level.

Early evidence suggests he might be pretty good at it, too.

This contrast between Chun and Moos, intentional or not, makes it about three times as easy for fans to get behind these new coaches and teams.

Especially at a place like WSU – for which its identity is undeniably as an underdog. It doesn't mean you can't win big there – Mike Price (discovered by WSU, from Weber State) went to two Rose Bowls, only one of which had a significant star player on the roster.

So WSU is an entity that has to use its own ingenuity to create success. It used to be, at least, before Leach and the expenditures of the past nine years.

Nonetheless, Chun's two moves have put WSU back to being WSU. It’s returned to being a record company that discovers its own acts.

Isn't it refreshing?

The risk of tapping new talent is, by definition, always hit-or-miss. All the while, it's engaging, it's endearing, it's inspirational.

It's leading from the front.

Genuine rooting interest has returned to full eligibility at WSU.

Good job, Mr. Chun.

Now just one small item remains.

When C.J. Elleby is introduced at Beasley Coliseum Sunday for the last home game of the year against Stanford, see to it that a particular song slips in on the loudspeakers: U2 “Stay (Faraway So Close).”