New UW football coach Steve Sarkisian has announced the hiring of three members of his coaching staff.

Here's the story from the Wednesday paper.

Here are the hires.

Jim Michalczik offensive coordinator and offensive line coach. He has spent the past six seasons at Cal, where he was assistant head coach, co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.

Demetrice Martin, secondary coach. He comes from Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif, where he was an assistant coach of a 12-2 team that went to the state title game.

Johnny Nansen, special teams and defensive staff. He is a former Cougar who spent the last five seasons at Idaho, coaching linebackers, defensive line and special teams.

Sarkisian also introduced Jared Blank as director of player personnel. Like Sarkisian, Blank comes from USC, where he has served as director of player personnel for the last 18 months.

That position, Sarkisian just explained, will involve recruiting issues, making sure there a reasonable balance between linemen, receivers, tailbacks, etc., and development of players.

A few other Sark notes:

* He failed to land USC assistant Rocky Seto as his defensive coordinator, noting that USC can be a hard place to pry people away from. He said has has a couple of other candidates in mind, but declined to name them.

* He confirmed that no members of Willingham's staff will be retained. He said he wasn't especailly looking for that clean a break, but that "it just worked out that way" and "was the right thing to do... only time will tell."

* He had to use his recruiting skills to lure Michalczik from Cal.

* He'll call the plays, but he'll work with Michalczik on game planning and other issues. He especailly seems interesting in Michalczik's skills in handling the running game and blocking schemes.

* Nansen and Martin are already out recruiting.

* He said his meetings with players have convinced him that they are "starving to win."

* He expects some player postition changes ... some happily, some less so, but all for the good of the team.

* He said he is having fun, and he wants his players to have fun, too.

* He has hired a strength coach and assistant... both from USC.

* He expects another round of hirings to be annouced in about a week.

* His last name is pronounced sar-kee-zhun.

We just got a little time with basketball coach Lorenzo Romar. The big topic today seemed to be players moving into their roles with this team. I'll write more about that later.

The pure news today was Romar's continued belief that Jon Brockman's injured ankle should be ready for practice by tomorrow or Thursday, but should certainly be ready for game action Saturday when Eastern Washington visits.

Also, still no decision on play/redshirt for true freshman Tyreese Breshers.