Fortunately, the circus has gone around Spokane

Let’s hope Spokane never changes.

Too broad a brush? OK, let’s narrow it down a little.

When it comes to the meat market that is the football recruiting season, the Spokane area seems to have the correct perspective.

This was brought home last Friday in Seattle when Lacey’s Jonathan Stewart announced his college choice live on KING-TV’s 5 p.m. newscast.

At least Washington’s all-time prep rushing leader showed class while informing KING’s future-crazed viewers he was going to attend Oregon. There was no entourage on screen with him, no posse to back him up. He just told Paul Silvi he had decided to head down I-5 to Eugene because it reminded him of Lacey.

In the studio were his youth pastor, mom and a couple of coaches.

Stewart was fulfilling a promise Silvi had forced out of him during football season when he asked the young man on air if he was, of course, going to announce on Silvi’s show.

At least that saved Stewart the embarrassment of announcing his college choice at the U.S. Army High School All-Star Football Game and Televised Announcement Party held the week before in San Antonio.

Stewart was a rarity at that prep showcase: a kid who came just to play football.

Most everyone else came to pull a hat out of a bag on national TV.

The spectacle of 17- and 18-year-old boys announcing where they would spend the rest of their youth playing football has a sense of pathos to it.

So what does this have to do with Spokane and never changing?

When Rogers High tight end Levi Horn recently decided to join Stewart at Oregon, he didn’t hold a televised press conference. He wandered down to the office of Activities Coordinator Darcy Weisner and called the local paper.

The argument can be made that Stewart’s decision is worth televising because he’s a can’t-miss prospect whereas Horn is just one of a multitude of Ducks recruits. You can argue that Spokane doesn’t turn out the high-end prospects like other areas.

But who knows for sure who is going to be a star?

When Steve Emtman was at Cheney, he wasn’t the Huskies’ No. 1 recruit. He wasn’t their No. 1 defensive line recruit. That role was filled by Mike Lustyk, another can’t-miss prospect from Bellevue.

Emtman went on to win the Outland and Lombardi trophies, lead the Huskies to a share of the national title and become the NFL’s top draft choice. Lustyk, limited by injuries, was never a force.

About the only hubbub recently about a Spokane-area football player was in 1999, when Ferris’ Jeremey Williams, recruited by the likes of Michigan, USC and UW, held a press conference in the school library announcing he was going to attend WSU.

Jeremey’s dad, Wallace, the principal at Rogers, made sure some of Jeremey’s teachers were at the event, not just his football coaches.

Since then, pretty much nothing.

That doesn’t mean Spokane-area kids haven’t had an effect on the college scene. Williams was part of a senior class that won more games than any at WSU. Emtman is obvious. Cheney’s Rich DeMulling went to Idaho and is part of one of the best offensive lines (Indianapolis) in the NFL. Kettle Falls’ James Darling not only helped the Cougars, he had 93 tackles for the Arizona Cardinals this year.

Who’s to say that LC’s Josh Shaw or Gonzaga Prep’s Kellen Beam or Horn might not turn out to be every bit the college player as those kids having their 15 seconds of fame in San Antonio?

We’re just off the radar here. The hype has passed us by.

Let’s hope that, at least, never changes.