A Grip on Sports: The question of when the Olympics will be held was answered this morning
A GRIP ON SPORTS • We have a whole bunch of chicken/egg questions today, but we’ll start with this one: Were house cats bred to be the exact size of a heating vent or were heating vents designed to be the size of the family cat?
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• I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know very little in the way of warm air escapes past our cat’s body on cold mornings. Thankfully, she’s learned to avoid the vent in the office on which my slipper-covered feet reside while we write this column.
On Monday mornings, we need all the warmth we can get, because it’s not supplied by calories burned by reading about sports. Even in the best of times – this is not that – it’s a chore to find a lot to link on the workweek’s opening day concerning sports that impact the Inland Northwest.
It would be easier, of course, if there were baseball going on. The national pastime always supplies stories, whether they are about the Mariners’ latest loss or their latest injury. Sadly, nothing of the sort is available today.
We do have Olympics news. The Games of the whatever-it-is Olympiad will take place in the summer of 2021. July 23 to Aug. 8 to be exact. They will still be in Tokyo. And they will still go on without my presence. Someday we’ll attend an Olympics. It’s on our bucket list, brought to you by Home Depot. (That’s a not-so-veiled attempt to get Home Depot to sponsor this feature, if only for a few free orange buckets. There is always something to put in a bucket, right?) We’re looking toward 2028, when the Games are supposed to be held in Los Angeles again. We could afford to travel there – though if the stock market continues its recent tumble, even that might be hard – and have a few friends we could stay with.
That’s a long way down the road, so to speak, whereas next year’s Olympics are not. With the year delay, they are only some 16 months away. Time to get training.
• An NCAA committee is going to decide today, in theory, whether to give Division I student/athletes whose season was either lost or cut short to COVID-19 another year of eligibility.
What seemed like a slam dunk a couple weeks ago – Division II and Division III have already granted spring sports athletes the go-ahead – has hit some roadblocks. Guess what’s behind it?
If you answered anything but money, go sit in the corner.
It’s always about the money. Everything is. The NCAA isn’t any different. Especially not in these times. Not when its basketball tournament was canceled, costing the organization, and its members, almost a billion dollars. The resulting budget crunch for schools from Pullman to Miami is forcing the administrators to think twice about doing the right thing.
It’s such a conundrum the decision may be postponed. Sure, why not? Let the athletes swing in the wind a little longer. Why not? They have nothing else to do right now.
It would be expensive to expand rosters and scholarship limits for a year, even if most spring sports only give out full rides sparingly – unlike football and basketball. It would be an expensive logistical nightmare to oversee the resulting chaos that could last up to four years. And there isn’t a dime to spare, considering how much money has been lost. You know, if every Division I college coach took a 1 percent pay cut, and that money was put in a pot, it probably would cover the cost – but we can’t ask for that type of sacrifice in this time of need. No, that would be too much.
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WSU: Around the Pac-12, former Washington football coach Jim Lambright, who was the architect of the Huskies’ most-feared defenses, has died. He was 77. … One of the best basketball players in the conference, Arizona’s Aari McDonald, has decided to return for her senior season. … The other good news for the Wildcats? They won the 1997 title again. … USC will try to win the 2021 Pac-12 title. … Another Colorado basketball player to examine. This time it is Tyler Bey.
EWU: Venky Jois has been everywhere, man, playing hoops. However, the former Eastern star considers the U.S. his second home.
Whitworth: The Pirates’ spring sports stars have had their life thrown into disarray, like their counterparts throughout the world. Dan Thompson delves into their stories.
Seahawks: What is left on the Hawks’ to-do list?
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• We’ll be back here tomorrow. I tell you, though, one of these days I’m going to sleep in. One of the rainy days probably. We have a few of those in the forecast. That will cut down my barbecuing. Did hamburgers last night. They were so good. And led to my new quarantine name, via the latest Twitter meme: Burger Knight. I like it. It sounds like an overweight rapper. Or a small-town hamburger stand in the middle of North Dakota. Until later …