A CONVERSATION WITH: The Athletes From Washington and Washington State talk about The Dual...

WSU All-Century Team member
Bernard Lagat (Paul Merca photo)

In the latest installment of A CONVERSATION WITH, we got a group of Washington and Washington State alums to talk about The Dual, which would have occurred Friday April 24th in Pullman.

The group of athletes included a bevy of Pac-10/12 Conference champions, school record holders, All-Americans, NCAA champions, and a pair of Pac-12 All Century Team members in Bernard Lagat from WSU and Aretha Thurmond of the UW.

In the 75 minute video, the group of Cougars that includes steeplechaser Collier Lawrence, high jumpers Lissa (Gray) Olson and Peyton Fredrickson, long jumpers Bill Ayears and Francesca Green; discus thrower Ian Waltz, and multi event specialist Alissa Brooks-Johnson, as well as the group of Huskies that consist of hurdler Chris Williams, 800 meter runner Ryan Brown, high jumpers Rick Noji and Vicki (Borsheim) Beskind; steeplechaser Mel Lawrence, and 400 meter runner Ryan Croson, talk about their experiences competing in one of the country's longest standing collegiate dual meets.

UW All-Century Team member Aretha Thurmond
(Paul Merca photo)

Olson from Washington State drew upon her perspective as a competitor in the meet for the Cougars as well as an assistant coach at both schools, while sisters Collier and Mel Lawrence talked about their time competing for the schools, even though Collier was three years older than Mel, but didn't run against her sister in the meet.

One common theme from the Washington State side was how badly retired Cougar coach Rick Sloan wanted to win this meet. Some of the older Huskies and Cougars on the chat also discussed retired coaches Ken Shannon at Washington and John Chaplin of Washington State.

Ayears, Noji, and Beskind go in depth about the 1987 Dual, which was contested at Everett Memorial Stadium, while the north deck of Husky Stadium was expanded. That particular meet was significant for Beskind, as the Everett native set the Washington school record of 6-2.75 (1.90m) at that venue.

Ryan Croson recalled one of the most dramatic races in recent Dual history, his anchor leg on the men's 4 x 400 relay in the 2017 meet, knowing that the winning team would win the meet.

Towards the end of the video is a guest appearance from 2000 Olympic pole vault champion Stacy Dragila, who is married to Waltz.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns about the video content, please don't hesitate to click the envelope at the bottom of the post or in the comments section of the YouTube channel.

Here's the video:



NOTE: The sports information offices of the University of Washington, Washington State University, the Pac-12 Conference, the NCAA all contributed to this report.

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