PULLMAN, WA – It’s a curious place for a soft-spoken introvert to be: standing in the middle of thousands of screaming fans on national TV, waving the Washington State University flag.
Yet Tom Pounds has been there 15 times, flying Ol’ Crimson on ESPN College GameDay.
It’s a ritual Pounds started in 2003 with a homemade flag and a lot of Coug pride. It’s now a modern WSU tradition carried out by a nationwide network of alums.
The logistics are impressive. Every week during college football season, ESPN announces the college campus where College GameDay filming will take place next. A Coug who lives nearby volunteers to be “chief flag waver,” and the flag is shipped to them. That person arrives hours ahead of showtime to snag a coveted spot near the stage. Other Cougs may join them to help keep the flag waving throughout the three-hour show.
Then when GameDay announces its next location, the Ol’ Crimson Booster Club network activates again.
Flag wavers “take their responsibility seriously,” Pounds said. “School pride runs deep.”
Once ESPN announces the college campus where the show is filming next, Cougs volunteer to be “chief flag waver.” Volunteers arrive hours ahead of showtime to snag coveted spots near the stage.
Pounds, class of 1981, helmed the Ol’ Crimson flag tradition from its inception through 2010. Since then the process has been led by CJ McCoy, class of 1998.
Said McCoy, “The thing that matters to me most, the reason I do this, is seeing how much it means to Cougs that the flag is on the show every week. It speaks to who WSU is and to our shared experiences as Cougars.”
As for the flags, more than 20 have been created by Pounds and his family. His wife Syndie was an accomplished seamstress who helped him get started. She died in 2009, and now his second wife, Mila, lends a hand. Each flag takes about 20 hours to sew.
Some have embroidered dedications, including for Syndie, former WSU football coach Mike Leach, former WSU president Elson S. Floyd, and longtime WSU announcer Bob Robertson. Others have been given to alumni organizations, boosters, and fundraising events. The first flag from 2003 hangs in the Lewis Alumni Centre on the WSU Pullman campus, signed by all the flag wavers from that year. Another hangs in ESPN headquarters.
Pounds said one of the most fun memories was in 2013, when GameDay was held on the University of Washington campus. UW fans had vowed to prevent the flag from getting to the set, so John Bley, secretary/treasurer of the Ol’ Crimson Booster Club, arranged to have it delivered via limousine and police escort.
“People thought it was the celebrity guest-picker,” Pounds said, citing another GameDay tradition. Instead, the WSU flag emerged and the waver “made a mad rush for the set,” he said.
Pounds said he’s still amazed by the strength of the tradition he started. “Even as far back as 2004–05, I realized I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to.”
One misconception he wanted to clear up, however, is that his goal all along was to get College GameDay to visit Pullman — which the show finally did in 2018, drawing more than 30,000 people.
“The campaign to get them to come to Pullman,” he said, “that was never my intent.”
