Before we head off for several days with Mrs. BGA's side of the family, a quick note from the "Washington Huskies on SI" site about a former Dartmouth lineman who graduated in 2005. From the story headlined Ex-Husky assistant Cato reportedly will join WSU (LINK):
While Jimmy Lake's University of Washington football tenure didn't do a lot for the career advancement of his staff, tight-ends coach Derham Cato seems to have bounced back nicely.
After spending three seasons at Missouri, Cato appears headed back to the state with 247Sports reporting he is expected to be hired by Washington State as part of Kirby Moore's new staff in Pullman. Moore and Cato worked together at Missouri.
And, the story within the story . . .
(Cato) is remembered in Montlake as the coach who got taken out on the sideline by one of his own players on a punt in 2021 at Oregon State in the first quarter and had to be taken to a local hospital with a leg injury.
Cato was looking away when a punt-coverage guy called "a gunner" got knocked out of bounds and into him.
"I kind of got blindsided," he said the following week. "I saw him at the last second and got hit. It is what is."
Luckily for him, Cato didn't suffer any kind of injury that required surgery, though he missed the rest of a game the Huskies lost, 27-24. He didn't rejoin the team until it was boarding the charter flight to go home.
"It was more embarrassing than anything, honestly," he said. The thing about Cato is he can take a hit. As a player, he was a three-year starting defensive tackle at Dartmouth, last playing collegiately in 2004. Now considerably lighter, he carried a 6-foot-4, 275-pound frame back then.
Cato spent the 2010 season as tight ends coach at Dartmouth, also helping out in strength and conditioning. In addition to Dartmouth, Washington and Missouri, he has been on staff at Vanderbilt, Davidson and Maine.
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EXTRA POINT
For those who have been following along, Griff the Wonder Dog is recovering nicely from his surgery. Here he is enjoying some well-deserved R&R, which is what we'll be doing for the next few days. See you soon.
