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Summer 2026

Notable Alumni

Small cropped thumbnail of a close-up photograph showing an older adult wearing glasses and a collared shirt against a dark background.
Summer 2026

Music and Memory: A Chat with Doug Bradley

Before mixing tapes, burning CDs, and downloading individual songs or albums, kids collected 45s. More than half a century later, one of those kids, now retired and a grandfather, is using the same singles in the record collection of his youth to tell the story of his coming of age.

Doug Bradley (’74 MA English) grew up against a backdrop of rock ‘n’ roll and racial tension. The Tracks of My Years: A Music-Based Memoir (2025, Legacy Book Press) shares the music that meant something to him as a boy in post-World War II Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as a college student in 1960s rural … » More …

Action photograph of a quarterback in a dark uniform and helmet throwing a football during a game, with opposing players and teammates nearby in rainy conditions.
Summer 2026

Finding His Mind Strength

He was a fifth-string walk-on with a big dream.

The Washington State University freshman wanted someday to be the starting quarterback for the Cougs. But during the 2013 season on the football team—his first—he was redshirted. He was, he says, “invisible.”

A year later, Luke Falk (’17 Soc. Sci.) was the Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week for the first of six times. He went on to start in 40 games, setting a WSU record with 27 wins. In 2017, his final season with Coug football, Falk won the Burlsworth Trophy, awarded to the nation’s top former walk-on.

These achievements were possible, he says, because … » More …