Two Cougs, playing catch
John Scukanec (’96 Crim. Jus.) makes a point to play a game of catch every day (Winter 2023). He saw the Fall 2024 story about Ed Niehl (’51 Phys. Ed., ’54 Ed.), a former WSU football player who recently turned 100.
Scukanec, also a former Cougar football player, wanted to play catch with Niehl and said so on social media. So magazine associate editor Adriana Janovich helped connect them. And the rest is history.
Here’s part of what Scukanec posted in his Instagram:
In 1945 [Ed Niehl] quit high school to join the Army where he fought in an artillery unit in WW II. One day, after he returned home, there was a knock at the door. “It was a man from Pullman, asking if I wanted to play football at Washington State College. I was a pretty good runner and I could throw a bit. My parents weren’t able to send me to college otherwise, so I figured, sure. I’d go.”
He went. His parents dropped him off in front of Bohler Gym in 1948 with a few bags of clothes.
“I didn’t know what to do next. I had no idea where to go or what was going to happen.”
I told him my parents did the same thing with me 43 years later. It was not lost on me that we had once stood in the exact same spot, a lifetime apart, and had felt the exact same way.
“I guess I figured it out eventually,” Ed said.
So did I.
I’ve often said that playing football for WSU makes you brothers and I told that to Ed.
“Is that why you’re here today?”
Yes. I wanted to come play catch with my older brother.
And we did. On a sunny fall afternoon, a couple of old Cougs shared a catch. Ed was more than up for it.
“You better back up, John. I’m just getting warmed up … Feels like I’m 75 again.”
You want to know what it means to be a Coug? It means that you’re part of a family … even if it takes you 100 years to meet.