Peller Phillips died in Seattle on Feb. 18 from congestive heart failure. He was 72. He lived a full life. Yet there was a time when Phillips feared the end for him might come as a young man when he wasn’t looking, in a sinister and brutal manner, at the hands of some shadowy Mafia figure.

Phillips forever will be known as the centerpiece of one of the city’s worst and most theatrical sports scandals: A Seattle University basketball player who stood accused -- and was quietly exonerated -- of point-shaving in an obscure game at the behest of the Chicago underworld.

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It was so easy for everyone to get along when the Washington and Gonzaga college basketball programs weren't very good. The coaches knew each other, related to each other and regularly commiserated with each other over beers about their respective rebuilding projects.

Finally, they concluded: Why don't we play each other annually in a friendly rivalry?

So eager to make this happen and accommodate their cross-state buddies, the Pac-10 Huskies, with the upper hand in bargaining power, easily could have insisted on two-for-one, home-and-away scheduling with the mid-major school from Spokane and the West Coast Conference. But they generously settled for alternating sites. Everyone was so agreeable, so cordial.
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