WSU player receives award for court ordered community service

DYLAN GREENE, Evergreen deputy sports editor

WSU senior rush linebacker Logan Tago received the Center for Civic Engagement Fall 2017 Community Involvement award on Thursday after contributing 240 hours of community service to the Pullman community.

Those 240 hours were a part of a plea deal Tago accepted on Jan. 27, 2017 for third degree assault, according to The Seattle Times. The plea deal came after he was charged with second degree felony robbery and fourth degree misdemeanor assault for an alleged incident on June 4, 2016, the Times reported.

The charges stemmed from an incident where he allegedly took a man’s six pack of beer and hit him in the head.

Tago’s attorney Steve Martonick at the time said the second degree robbery charge was reduced to third-degree assault and the fourth-degree misdemeanor charge was dismissed.

Third-degree assault is a Class C felony in the state of Washington that can result in up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Tago was sentenced to serve 30 days in Whitman County jail, perform 240 hours of community and pay $800 in fines, according to the Times.

Former WSU Athletic Director Bill Moos suspended Tago from athletic competition indefinitely following the announcement of his plea deal. Tago played in all 13 games for the Cougars this season.

Tago was initially suspended from WSU for two years through May 2017. But his suspension was lifted in November of 2016 after the school’s student conduct lifted some sanctions temporarily to re-evaluated its procedures, according to the Times.

This allowed Tago to return to practice that year despite a policy in the WSU athletic department that doesn’t allow a student athlete facing felony charges to play, the Times reports. Although, a clause in the rules states that the athletic director can make an exception given “extraordinary circumstances,” according to the Times. This allowed Tago to play in the final two games of that season.