We're nearing the end of yet another year on the beautiful campus of Washington State University. It has been an unusually busy year amongst the rolling hills of the Palouse. What with the media frenzy surrounding the hiring of Mike Leach leaking over into the next calendar year, the completion of the Cougar Football Project, approval of the Football Operations Building and a postseason run for all the Zebra pens, we've had plenty to talk about.
As we close out the year, it's time once again to hand out CougCenter's most illustrious and only award. But there have been some changes to how we name a winner this year.
Instead of doing this bracket style, we're going to start with a list of 10 candidates (we'll get to those in a bit). Tomorrow at 7:00 p.m., you're cordially invited to a Google Plus Hangout where the CougCenter authors will slim the list down to five finalists. From there, we'll do a post on each of the finalists as we sing their praises and make a case for each one to win the award. Finally, we'll open up the voting to the general Cougar public for 48 hours to select a winner.
You may also have noticed one other change. The award has been named after one of the greatest Cougs to ever pass through the hallowed halls of Washington State University. If you're unfamiliar with Kathi Goertzen, she was an anchorwoman for KOMO in Seattle for over two decades and for nearly 15 years, continually fought persistent brain tumors all while sharing her journey of healing with the world. Kathi passed away in August, losing a battle with brain tumors none of us thought the tumors would win. As usual, Brian sums it up perfectly with his piece on Kathi. I can't remember a time when an entire university in addition to a city and region felt such a collective sadness. For that reason and so many more, we thought nothing would be more fitting than to name our Coug of the Year award for Kathi.
In no particular order, here are your nominees for the 2012 Kathi Goertzen Coug of the Year award:
Elson Floyd
Taylor Ard
Keidane McAlpine
Bill Moos
Steve Gleason
Brock Motum
The Fireball Chugger
Tomorrow, we'll cut the list down to five finalists in our Google Plus Hangout. We hope you can join us.