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It should be considered the ultimate compliment, of which both men were entirely deserving.

Here was Bill Moos, the new athletic director at Washington State, delighting in connecting with Cougars old and new during Friday night's booster gathering at La Chateau in downtown Yakima.

Then in walked someone who might otherwise have been considered an interloper, except that fiercely loyal Oregon alum Keith Farnam was this time wearing a red-and-white checked shirt and was beaming from beneath a crimson and gray WSU cap.

"Keith!" Moos shouted.

"Bill!" Farnam responded.

After which a long hug, broad smiles and vigorous handshakes ensued.

"Bill used to tell me that whenever I came down to Eugene I needed to bring some green," Farnam recalled. "So I brought asparagus."

Then in more serious tones, Farnam said, "Congratulations on your new job, Bill, and thanks for everything you did for us down at Oregon."

Will Moos accomplish for the Cougs all that he did for the Ducks? Probably not, unless an alum with a Phil Knight-sized wallet emerges.

But that's not important.

More meaningful is that Washington State now has as its athletic commander in chief something it has always needed. It has someone who knows the school as only a Cougar can -- Moos was an all-Pac-8 offensive tackle in 1972 -- plus someone who also has experienced administrative life outside the Palouse. And in the same conference, even.

As playing for Jim Sweeney was invaluable in preparing Moos for his current job, so were AD tenures at first Montana and then Oregon.

Though he has long coveted his new Bohler Gym office, Moos was previously denied when in 1994 WSU hired Rick Dickson to replace Jim Livengood.

"But finally," Moos said Friday, "the planets aligned."

Storybook beginning aside, he realizes there is much to do.

Moos continues to familiarize himself with his coaches and staff, after which he will formulate a plan to be in place by the start of the next school year.

A top priority will obviously be a football program that has gone 3-22 the past two seasons while being outscored 1,032-309.

"I've watched as a fan," Moos said, "and also as an opponent at the University of Oregon for 12 years. I've seen some incredible accomplishments by the Cougars during that span -- two Rose Bowls over six years and three 10-win seasons in consecutive order.

"So my assessment is we can get there -- we've proven that. We also have to have a strategy in place as to how we're going to stay there."

Skeptics should be reminded that such success can be achieved without Knight's legendary largesse. Among other things, the Nike czar had never before bankrolled Oregon until Moos' arrival, despite his having run track there.

Also, donations independent of Knight doubled during Moos' reign.

Meanwhile, back at the La Chateau, more Cougars filed in, more familiar faces were found and more warm greetings exchanged.

"Our school," Moos said quietly, "needs some help right now. But I can promise you that I'll do everything in my power to provide that help."

Given WSU's current athletic state -- it was last in the Pac-10 in the two most prominent sports, football and men's basketball -- the task is daunting, and this Moos knows as only a Cougar could. But since he has also witnessed WSU's fortunes from afar, it could be said he knows the situation both inside and out.

It would probably be unfair to describe Jim Sterk as having been bad for Washington State. He did, after all, oversee a renaissance of Cougars men's hoops under Dick and Tony Bennett.

Sterk's biggest failing, however, wasn't what he was as much as what he wasn't.