Answers to your questions

What’s on my bucket list? Pac-12 future? Favorite sports moment as a kid? Nicest people I’ve interviewed?

BEND, Ore. - This Q&A post was supposed to be a weekly thing, but here it is, two weeks after the first one.

What happened? Well, I didn’t think I had enough questions to write one as of a week ago, and general laziness and procrastination were factors too.

But this morning, I’ve got a sudden burst of energy that won’t last long so let’s get going…

From Bambino 335 on Twitter: Think the Pac-12 will ever be whole again, and is it sustainable?

Unfortunately, I don’t think it will ever be whole again, everyone’s chasing the most money, and the super-conferences reign in that department.

As much as I appreciate Washington State’s and Oregon State’s efforts to resuscitate and rebuild the conference, it’s never going to be the Pac-12 that we remember. Games against Texas State will never match the excitement of games against Oregon. And a homecoming matchup against Fresno State won’t be nearly as good as one against USC.

But what’s interesting, as Ryan Leaf pointed out when I spoke to him this week, the Pac-12 offers a better shot at an invitation to the College Football Playoff for the Cougs and Beavs than the Big Ten does for Washington and Oregon.

If you win the reconstituted Pac-12, it stands to reason that you’ll be a better candidate than a fourth- or fifth-place team in the Big Ten.

And I do think that it’s top-notch as a basketball conference, particularly with Gonzaga coming in.

I don’t think it’s necessarily sustainable because everything will change again when TV contracts end.

In the meantime, I’d love to see Cal and Stanford come back to the Pac-12 after experiencing the nonsense with cross-country travel in the ACC.

I hate what they’ve done to college football, my favorite sport, which to be honest, won’t be my favorite sport much longer. Can’t stand what the NIL stuff has done to the Cougs. We can’t compete money-wise with football factories elsewhere.

I guess we just have to get used to someone having a standout season in Pullman and be resigned to the fact that he’s gonna be one and done like John Mateer and Lejuan Watts in basketball.

From Brandon Williams: Would you rather shoot 10 shots below your handicap but play with strangers who are slow and don’t drink or shoot 10 over your handicap but drinks are flowing with close friends?

Hey Brandon, can I get your mailing address so I can send you a $10 gift card to Dairy Queen for the Question of the Week, or wait, the Question of the Every Other Week?

That’s a tough one. A round of golf is more fun when you play well, but you can still have a good time if you’re with buddies and cocktailing your way around the course.

I played yesterday at Crooked River with two guys I’d never met and another, Allen Schauffler, who I barely know from his years at KING-TV. Allen moved to Central Oregon six years ago and was nice enough to invite me to play with his buddies Stu and Kevin yesterday.

I had a great time. All good guys, they played fast, we walked the course, we were all similarly talented (as in not very), we had a beer while we played and shared a pitcher at the Sandbagger Saloon after we finished.

I shot an 88, which is about four or five shots worse than I normally would at a course like Crooked River, which is user friendly. I swear, some of the fairways are a football field wide, and I was still capable of missing a few of them.

If I played with strangers like the ones I played with yesterday, I’d vote for strangers, Brandon. But if they had been as slow as Patrick Cantlay or unfriendly and completely focused on their game and not very much fun as playing partners, sure, I’d vote for being with my buddies with the music playing from a speaker on the cart and smuggled in booze being consumed left and right, somehow compensating for a 99 on the scorecard.

From Rich Howard: As a fellow degenerate gambler, when are you going to restart your Smokin’ Lock of the Week? Those things were money. I would wager with both hands the opposite of what you selected. I’m still playing with house money on my offshore account.

Thanks, I think, for your question, Rich. You’re referring to a weekly Friday segment at 710 ESPN Seattle when I picked my Smokin’ Lock of the Week. I’m not sure how that started - I think co-host Danny O’Neil suggested it - but I know how it ended. Our station was owned by the Mormon church and all of a sudden one day, I was told we couldn’t talk about gambling anymore and we also needed to limit what we said about booze on the air.

I remember thinking, damn, those are two of my strengths. If they want me to break down football plays with X’s and O’s, I’m doomed. I also didn’t understand it at all - my guess is that most sports radio listeners gamble on sports and drink while they watch them. Why would we not cater to that?

But while it was a thing, the Smokin’ Lock of the Week became a joke of a segment because of my inability to pick winners. I swear that each week I did my best to pick a guaranteed winner. I wasn’t intentionally trying to lose for the sake of the segment so that listeners could continue to mock my sorry ass.

But week after week, I continued to lose, making people like you rich, Rich. All they had to do was go the opposite way, and voila! Another winner winner chicken dinner.

Good news for all you mocksters - I’m bringing back the Smokin’ Lock of the Week, maybe even in video form, later today or early tomorrow on Substack. But this time, I’m gonna kill it. No losing this time around. I will literally bet on my own Smokin” Locks and hope you do too.

By the way, for anyone who thinks I have a gambling problem, I’d say I used to but don’t anymore. I typically bet $10 or $20 on a game, occasionally $40 or $50.

Many years ago when I had a bookie, I’d go $50 or $100 on a game. His minimum was $50.

I can’t remember what my biggest winning wager was - oh wait, yes I do, it was $800 on the Cougs when they lost to Michigan in the Rose Bowl but covered the spread.

But I’ve always remembered my biggest loss - $1,200 on the Dolphins in the 1985 Super Bowl. I was getting Miami +3 in a game the 49ers won 38-16. The fortunate part of losing $1,200? I was up $1,200 with my bookie and went double or nothing and lost but didn’t have to come up with $1,200 if that makes sense, none of which did at the time.

From Brian Evans of Palmer, Alaska: What youth sports moment of yours is the most memorable in your life? I must admit that mine is my last high school summer league baseball tournament loss.

Hey Brian, thanks for your question. I wasn’t a very good athlete. Oh, I was fairly good in baseball, good enough to be a starting catcher in high school. But I hit around .210 or something like that with zero homers and maybe two or three doubles.

Looking back, I wish I’d had more of a plan when I went to the plate, as in, I wish I’d guessed what a pitcher would be throwing instead of just reacting to whatever pitch it was. But I don’t know if that would have made me a better hitter or not.

I tried out as a walk-on at Washington State and after a few practices, I can still remember going out to the field and hearing coach Bobo Brayton say: “Some of you fellas might want to take a look at the cut sheet I’ve posted in Bohler Gym.”

I went in, looked at the cut sheet, saw Jim Moore on the list and headed back to Gannon Hall, not really disappointed because l knew I just wasn’t talented enough to be a college baseball player.

I was barely good enough to make the basketball teams at Redmond Junior High and Redmond High but rarely played, an end-of-the-bencher every year and rightfully so.

With Coach Becker in Pendleton in May 2024

But before one game my senior year, we had several injuries and another player was on vacation. Our coach, Bob Becker, called me into his office a half-hour before tipoff and said: “Moore, I’m gonna have to play you tonight, and I don’t want you to play like you do in practice, throwing up all of those long shots you throw up.”

I thought to myself, “damn, I don’t really like the way you worded that coach, you’re GONNA HAVE TO PLAY ME? Couldn’t you have said some bullshit like, Jim, you’re gonna get your opportunity tonight and I know you’re gonna make the most of it?

Didn’t matter I guess, I just thought, great, can’t wait, let’s see how it goes. In hindsight, I don’t think it went very well because if it did, I’d remember it. I do remember throwing up some 20-footers though, none of which went in, but I thought, screw it, that’s my game! Sorry, coach.

Last year I ran into Coach Becker in Pendleton, Ore., where Mikey was playing his last junior college baseball game. Becker’s retired in Walla Walla, a short drive to Pendleton. His daughter was a friend of a mom of one of Mikey’s teammates at Pierce College, and Becker decided to drive down to watch the game.

We shook hands and hugged. He looked terrific at 87 years of age. We reminisced about our years at Redmond.

After the game, the husband of the mom of Mikey’s teammate told me he asked Becker what kind of a player I was, and Becker replied: “Slow white kid.”

True that.

Anyway, Brian, here it is, it’s taken me forever to answer your question. Believe it or not, it comes from a Redmond High basketball game at Mercer Island. We hated the Islanders for all of the success they always had under legendary coach Ed Pepple. We hated the blazers and ties they wore to their games. We hated them because we always lost to them.

But you wanna know why I liked them? Every time we played Mercer Island, I knew I was gonna play because we’d be down by 20 at half and down by 30 going into the fourth quarter with no chance to win.

That meant playing time for me. In one such game at Mercer Island, I got the ball at the top of the key and put it up. Swish! Touched nothing but twine. Probably cut the Mercer Island lead to 28.

Why was it my most memorable moment? Because it happened in front of Pepple, and it happened at the MI gym. And because it was the biggest two points of the seven I scored all season.

From Buggy White: Can anyone please explain why Mitch Levy is so well-respected after his, shall we say, run in with the law?

In 2017, Mitch was arrested during an undercover prostitution sting in Bellevue, leading to a misdemeanor charge and two years of probation. It also cost Mitch his sports talk show job at KJR.

Sounds like you feel differently, Buggy, but I respect Mitch for rallying like he has since his arrest. He’s been honest about what happened and why he thinks it happened, explaining all of it in the first episode of his Mitch Unfiltered podcast.

And I’m a big believer in second chances, not so much third and fourth chances, but second chances I am. Plus Mitch is well-respected because he’s a tremendous host, a blend of funny, entertaining and informative along with being a great interviewer.

From Brian Walter, who has three questions…

What are three things that remain on your sporting bucket list?

Well, Brian, the top three that come to mind…

1. Going to college football stadiums around the country that I’ve never been to, such as the ones at Nebraska, Alabama, Texas, LSU and Wisconsin among many others.

2. Going to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville.

3. Playing golf in New Zealand.

What sports do you wish you were better at as a kid?

Basketball for sure. But it would have been nice if I’d been better at football. I played offensive guard at Redmond Junior High. I was big enough but wasn’t tough enough. And playing on the offensive line wasn’t all that much fun.

I can still recall the letter I got from Redmond High coach Dennis Rieger the summer before 10th grade. “Practice starts the first week of August,” Rieger wrote.

I thought, “Not for me, coach, not for me. My football career is officially over.”

For what it’s worth, my best sport ever? Water skiing. I could cut it up on my O’Brien ski on Lake Sammamish, where my parents had a cabin. Spent every summer on the water as a kid. Never could make it all the way through the course of buoys at the north end of the lake, but I could get around a few of ‘em.

Kathie’s ski on the left, mine on the right.

Funny little footnote to that…my wife was a really good water skier too. We both know that our water skiing days are over but we can’t let go of them just yet. From house to house over the last 24 years, we’ve kept our old water skis - they’re in the garage as we speak - thinking just maybe we’ll get a chance to do it one more time.

Who were the most surprisingly nice people who you’ve interviewed?

Percy Harvin was the most surprisingly nice guy. Danny O’Neil and I interviewed Harvin after the Seahawks acquired him from the Vikings.

In Minnesota, he sounded like he was a piece of work, causing all kinds of off-field issues with the Vikings. But in our 15 minutes with him, he was terrific, smiling and chatting away, friendly as could be, making you feel like there was a huge misperception about him.

But then he had his share of problems in Seattle too, refusing to go into one game, but he did have that kickoff return that sealed the outcome in the Seahawks’ only Super Bowl championship.

The other two who come to mind who weren’t necessarily surprisingly nice - hydro driver Chip Hanauer and Sonics forward Eddie Johnson.

Chip was just flat-out the best, never thought he was anything special as a hydro driver or a person, just so down to earth. I felt like I was talking to a friend every time I interviewed him. The conversations were just so easy with him.

Eddie was known as a great shooter and a great quote. I almost always went to him in the locker room because whatever he had to say would make my game story better.

I also appreciated Eddie for something he did for me that was above and beyond. Before the playoffs one season, my editor thought it would be a good idea to get a first-person account from a player who would write a behind the scenes “diary” throughout the postseason.

Eddie agreed to do it, but he didn’t really write it, I did. I just interviewed him from time to time and wrote it up, acting like Eddie was the author.

We paid him $100 per diary, and he did seven of them so he made $700. The next year in 1993-94 he played for the Charlotte Hornets and gave me a call. Told me the Hornets were playing the Blazers in Portland in the next day or so.

Said that since I was the one who truly wrote those diaries, he wanted to give the $700 to me. So I drove down to Portland to meet him for lunch and sure enough, he handed me seven 100-dollar bills.

And no, I never told anyone at the Post-Intelligencer that I took money from Eddie, knowing I’d no doubt lose my job if I did.

Thanks for your questions. Please send more questions my way. Thanks for reading and subscribing. Have a great weekend.

Go Cougs.