2013 Kathi Goertzen Coug of the Year: Here are the nominees

Every year, Washington State student-athletes, coaches and administration give us a lot to be proud of as alumni and current students. It has been another busy year on the Palouse with an up and coming women's basketball team, another postseason appearance for women's soccer and the first bowl appearance in 10 years for the football team.

The calendar has flipped and so it's time to hand out CougCenter's one and only award, the Kathi Goertzen Coug of the Year. We're honored to name this award after an incredible woman who received well deserved recognition in September. Brian explains rather excellently why Kathi was so important to not just Seattle but WSU as well. Last year's winner with a late surge in the voting was former defensive end Travis Long.

A quick rundown of how we'll hand the award out: later this week, myself and a couple other CougCenter authors will get together on the CougCenter Hour to narrow the list of 10 nominees to five. Next week, we'll highlight the merits of each candidate before opening the voting to you, the general Cougar voting public for 48 hours. Person with the highest percent of the vote wins, we won't be doing a runoff if no one nabs 50 percent or more. There are no repeats on this list from last year's very strong field of candidates.

Here are your 10 nominees for the 2013 Kathi Goertzen Coug of the Year:

Deone Bucannon

Gabe Marks

Mike Leach

Gurveen Clair

Micaela Castain

Davonte Lacy

Yale Rosen

Kyra Holt

Lia Galdeira

Popcorn Guy