Grip on Sports: If a comeback for the ages occurs and no one is left to see it, did it happen?

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Growing up in Los Angeles, leaving games early is taught to young children almost religiously. The idea is to “beat the traffic.” But my father was always the contrarian. He believed in sitting at Dodger Stadium or the Coliseum or the Rose Bowl until the bitter end. Then we would run to the car to “beat the traffic.” Read on.

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• My father knew the value of the great comeback. He reveled in it. Sports were important to him because of it. Never giving up was, really, the only lesson he wanted us to learn from baseball or basketball or football.

Which is why his butt was in his seat until the final horn. That and he was really cheap. If he had paid the outrageous price of $2.50 for a game ticket, he was getting his nine-innings worth.

I remember a time my church youth group chartered a bus and attended a Dodger game against the Cubs. We sat in the left-field bleachers. And left after the seventh-inning stretch. Why? The Dodgers were down a bunch and the youth pastor wanted to get home.

Of course, the Cubs’ bullpen melted down – this was the early 1970s after all – and LA came back to win. My dad’s first question the next morning was how I enjoyed the Dodger rally. When I told him he we left early, he showered me with a few words I’m sure our youth pastor had never heard.

My dad was aghast. Leave early? Never.

But this is one of those life lessons that never really took with me. I’ve been known to sneak out of an event with a few seconds left on the clock. I guess I hate being stuck in traffic more than I fear my father rising from the grave and smacking me across the forehead.

My sister, though, is different. She learned dad’s lessons well. She’s a bitter ender, even though she still lives in the LA area and has to deal with the Ventura Freeway when heading home from the Rose Bowl.

See, Linda is a UCLA football season ticket holder. She loves her Bruins. Maybe it goes back to having classes with Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton’s older brother in Westwood. Maybe it was being a kinesiology major and a P.E. teacher. Maybe she’s just loves their colors.

But she’s a proud UCLA alumnus, a proud supporter of the football program and, like most fans, proud that’s she never too enamored with whomever is the head coach at the moment.

So there she was, sitting in her seat last night on the Rose Bowl’s west side, getting more and more disappointed as the Bruins rolled over and played dead against Texas A&M.

At halftime I sent her a text. It simply read “I’m sorry.” She knew what I meant.

But I was sure of one thing. When the game was over, she would be in her seats to boo Jim Mora as he left the field. Book it.

Except she didn’t boo. Couldn’t. Not because Josh Rosen led the Bruins to the greatest comeback in school history – they trailed 44-10 in the third quarter and won 45-44 on a last-minute touchdown. And not because she has suddenly become a Mora booster.

Nope. She didn’t boo because he wouldn’t have heard her. She was somewhere near Burbank as the game ended.

The whirring noise you hear this morning is my father spinning.

Yep, with the Bruins down 44-10, she gave up. Got up, told her daughter they were leaving, walked down the steps and out to her car. She had enough. She was heading home.

I found out because I texted her, wondering if she was going nuts with the comeback. She ratted herself out. Admitted to giving up. Leaving.

Ironically, she didn’t “beat the traffic.” Too many other UCLA fans were of the same mind.

They all missed the second-greatest comeback in FBS history. They all missed Rosen rising from the near-dead and throwing two balls up for grabs that ended up being touchdowns. And they all missed an opportunity to brag about how they were there when …

Unless they lie. Hide the fact they left early. Show their ticket and describe every one of the five late touchdowns in detail (thanks YouTube).

The only people who know are themselves. … Well, themselves and their younger brother.

Heck, he won’t tell anyone.

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WSU: No comeback needed Saturday for the Cougars. (As an aside, did you see the Pac-12’s record this weekend? 11-0. All it took was the “small” comeback in the Rose Bowl and the softest week one schedule ever.) They dominated Montana State from the get-go. Theo Lawson passes along every note he could think of and takes times to add some perspective on the win. He also checks how former WSU players did on the NFL’s cut day and lets us know what channel the Boise State game will be on. … Speaking of the Broncos, it looks as if Brett Rypien, Mark’s nephew, will still be the starting quarterback Saturday night. He was pulled late in BSU’s win over Troy last Saturday. … A former WSU quarterback, Peyton Bender, seems to have found a home at Kansas. … A future WSU quarterback, Cammon Cooper, is looking forward to making Pullman his home. … Stefanie Loh discovered a Drew Bledsoe fan Saturday in Pullman who had come a long way to get his hero’s autograph. … Stefanie also has another piece on how the Cougars communicate, though the “woo-woo” working is hard to believe.

Around the Pac-12, UCLA’s amazing comeback win last night didn’t seem possible. Not the way Rosen and the Bruins played the first two-and-a-half quarters. But they scored five times, including the fake spike go-ahead throw, to ruin Texas A&M’s night. … Washington hasn’t played Montana in a while. Sixty-six years in fact. … Nebraska is next up for the Willie Taggart turn-around train at Oregon. … Colorado had some new defensive starters that needed to play well against Colorado State. … Utah has owned BYU recently. … Next up for USC is Stanford. … Arizona State threw it deep in its opener. … Arizona hardly threw it at all.

Gonzaga: No Bulldog women’s soccer team has ever started better than this year’s group.

EWU: The loss to Texas Tech hurt. The Eagles weren’t competitive. But as Jim Allen tells us, there is no time to wallow. Eastern has a big home game this weekend against North Dakota State.

Indians: There may not be a hotter team in the Northwest League than Spokane right now. The Indians just can’t be put away, and their eighth walk-off win this season clinched the North Division’s second-half title last night at Avista Stadium. We had a full crew there, with Whitney Ogden supplying the game story, Rob Curley adding some perspective and James Snook putting together a photo report. The Indians will host Vancouver on Tuesday night. … Elsewhere in the Northwest League, Hillsboro won both the first- and second-half titles in the South. They will face Eugene in the playoffs.

Chiefs: Everett held off Portland in a preseason battle.

Mariners: With football season here, the M’s not only have to battle much of the American League for a playoff spot, they have to battle for the hearts and minds of Northwest fans. That’s the thrust of my column this week. … They didn’t face much of a battle this weekend with Oakland. Heck, Andrew Albers no-hit the A’s for a long time yesterday en route to the M’s 10-2 victory, completing a three-game series sweep. The win moved the Mariners a game closer to the second wild-card spot. … Marco Gonzales may be headed back to the rotation.

Seahawks: With the cuts made all that remains are the questions about the roster. Why did the Hawks cut Kasen Williams? Who will be on the practice squad? How will Earl Thomas play?

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• You know which games I couldn’t leave early, even though I had a burning desire to do just that? About all of the football games I covered for a couple years in Pullman. You know of which I am referring. How about 69-0? Or the one in which USC took a knee – in the first half? Good times. Until later …