Doug Clark: For a tennis player, I can be pretty quick with a keyboard

Two scattered thoughts for a Tuesday:

THOUGHT ONE – Proving my lack of judgment, I showed up at the Eastern Washington University tennis courts Sunday morning and played an exhibition doubles match with Steve Clark, no relation, who coaches the men’s team for my alma mater.

Having me play would add an element of comic theater to the finals of the EWU Fall Classic tennis tournament, Clark thought.

I don’t know if the players participating in the tournament bought into this.

“This is painful,” one of them was heard to mutter from the stands during our faux match.

It almost didn’t get that far.

Shortly after arriving, I had sufficient cause to back out after seeing what Clark had brought for me to wear.

It was a baseball catcher’s outfit complete with facemask, chest pad and those articulated leg protectors that make all catchers look related to crustaceans.

Then I started thinking about how hard Clark can hit a tennis ball and considered wearing the outfit, just in case.

Unfortunately, I could tell that this garb would not only impair my fuzzy vision, but make my already sluggish court movement even more glacial. So I left it on the bench.

The good news is that I survived. Plus the EWU courts are pretty cool with their new logo windscreens and ’80s rock blasting out of speakers.

Clark and I played two sets against Eduardo “Lalo” Martinez, who plays on the EWU team, and Esteban Rodriguez, an electrical engineering professor with a wicked serve and warm sense of humor.

They beat us 6-2 the first set.

Clark and I won the second (and final) set by the same amount.

I’m suspicious, however, that the coach might have ordered our foes to take it easier on the old guy.

After the dust settled, I asked Clark for an honest analysis of my big weapon.

“You make people laugh.”

I was talking about my forehand. Besides, how is making people laugh a tennis weapon?

Players, he added, “have a hard time concentrating and swinging correctly.”

Brother. I may learn to drink and take up bowling.

•

THOUGHT TWO – Legacy. It’s something elected officials think about, especially the ones who have enjoyed an extended stay swilling at the public trough.

And so it is with Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker, who is not running for re-election after what seems like a century of occupying office space.

I’m betting Tucker has given plenty of thought about how he’ll be remembered.

Will it be for his love of golf?

Will it be for the way he ducked and ran away from the Otto Zehm case, letting the feds go after the Spokane cop who bludgeoned and tazed the innocent janitor in a convenience store in 2006?

Who knows?

In my book, however, the story a father related about Tucker last week in a Spokane courtroom has legacy written all over it.

Rick Freier told how he had met with Tucker after learning of a plea deal that had been offered to Preston Maher, the 17-year-old who pleaded guilty last Thursday to vehicular homicide in the deaths of two of his University High School classmates.

One of those classmates was Freier’s daughter.

Believing the deal too lenient, the father wanted to explain his side to the man who had the ultimate say on prosecutorial offers.

“During the meeting, Freier said, Tucker talked extensively about Maher’s spotless background,” our news story reported.

Then came the following quote from Freier that appalls me each time I read it.

“I asked him another question. I asked him, ‘What was my daughter’s name?’ ”… “He started talking about another subject and I stopped him. I said, ‘What’s my daughter’s name?’ He looked at me and said, ‘Sorry, I don’t know.’ ”

Didn’t know her name?

How could that even be?

I emailed the prosecutor for an explanation. This is what came back.

“While he was talking to me he asked if I knew her first name. I hadn’t seen the case for a year. I knew the last name of the other victim.

“I went to the collision scene twice to check the area, which I usually don’t. Unfortunately, I never have been too good with first names without regular contact. I apologized.”

A few minutes later Tucker added …

“Spoke at the Murder Victim’s Vigil last night but didn’t know many first names either.”

Excuses are like sphincters, Steve.

Everybody has one at least.

I don’t know what it takes to be a prosecuting attorney. I do know that I would never talk to a grieving father without knowing his dead child’s name.

Oh, and by the way: They were Josie Freier and McKenzie Mott.

Tucker may want to ponder this next year when he’s out of office and contemplating his legacy.