A Grip on Sports: The story of our life can be read in how our Saturday mornings have changed

A GRIP ON SPORTS • You know how you can measure the age of the tree you just cut down by the rings? Well, our lives are easy to measure as well. Except, you don’t have to cut us down to do it. Just look at what you did on Saturday mornings. That tells the tale.

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• At least it does with us.

We look back at our Saturdays and it’s simple. Each stage of life featured a different activity. Which was best? Who knows. We just know they were all special.

Go back to the early years. Cartoons. A morning spent in PJs and eating sugary cereal so close to the TV our mother would have a fit. Move back when she growled, move closer when she left the room. Rinse and repeat. A special time filled with laughter.

Then came sports. Little League when the weather was fine, basketball or football when it wasn’t.

High school brought sleep. Saturday mornings were reserved for catch up through the late school years, though college didn’t get that treatment due to baseball commitments. Each Saturday held a doubleheader and that meant getting up at a decent time. Crud. How we envied our dormmates who spent the morning sawing logs.

A short reprieve followed college, cut even shorter due to home ownership and married life. Put in a new fence post? Patch a crack in the wall? Plant a garden? Saturday morning was the starting point. Or, if you were lucky, Saturday meant heading out on a hike or a run or, in our case for a while, a second job to pay the mortgage.

Kids changed all that. At first it was changing diapers – a 24/7 proposition, sure – and corralling them on the weekends mom worked at the hospital. Then came cartoons, which served as a de-facto baby sitter, allowing dad to get something done.

But before long the rings widened. The boys played sports. Soccer. Football. Baseball. Basketball. The sports car turned into a van and holy heck, what had we become?

Parents. And chauffeurs.

Those rings grew for a long time. Lasted until the high school years. Gave the family tree some tight bonds. A foundation for what was to become.

Slowly, surely, the stress lessened. And there became more time for other things. Yard work. Snow shoveling. Varied chores. But also time for watching sports. Baseball in the spring and summer. Football in the fall. Basketball. The preferred chair went from the lawn variety (when we first were married) to a leather Laz-e-Boy. The remote transformed from a clunky clicker to a sleek talk-into-it model. Life was good.

For most folks, the next step is one back in time. Grandkids appear and once again it’s off to sizzling hot baseball games or so-cold-as-to-freeze-your-nose soccer matches. That’s not in our cards just yet. Saturdays have become a great time to slowly rewind from the past week and all its stresses. Like it was oh so long ago.

Now if we could just find Underdog re-runs somewhere. They would go so well with the healthy cereal we eat these days. Heck, we could even sing along.

“Speed of lightning, roar of thunder. Fighting all who rob or plunder. Underdog …”

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WSU: A Colorado prep defensive lineman said Friday he will sign with Washington State. Colton Clark has this story. … The USC defense clamped down on the host Cougar women and snapped WSU’s winning streak, 51-44. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and college basketball, it was another key Friday for the conference’s women, with No. 4 Stanford hosting No. 8 Utah. The Cardinal won 74-62. … Colorado, ranked 24th, rallied past California. … Ninth-ranked UCLA got past Washington on the road. … Oregon and Oregon State battled in Corvallis with the Beavers prevailing 68-65 before a dynamic crowd. … The Oregon men have some momentum headed into today’s game with Stanford. … Colorado has lost focus. … We guarantee there will be two focused teams in Tucson this morning, when No. 11 Arizona hosts fifth-ranked UCLA. The Bruins are getting healthy again. … Washington needs to clean up some things. … Arizona State looks to bounce back against visiting USC. … Utah has a player of the year candidate. … Oregon State has an impotent offense. … In football news, which conference teams did well with transfers and which did not? … Oregon is moving forward with a new indoor facility. … The athletic departments at California and UCLA have financial issues. But not for long – for one of them. … Arizona State and Arizona have some financial issues as well. … Finally, there was something of a scandal at the Pac-12 Networks concerning payments from distributors. And it could cost the member schools some cash.

Gonzaga: The Bulldogs have a split weekend. Thursday was at home – a loss to Loyola Marymount that Jim Meehan examines once more – but today they are at the University of the Pacific. Theo Lawson has a preview of the game as well as the key matchup. … The women are at Saint Mary’s looking to fix a defense that let down against Pacific on Thursday. Jim Allen has this preview. … Elsewhere in the WCC, in USF, another physical game awaits the BYU men.

EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, Montana and Montana State meet in Missoula today in a doubleheader that always draw a full house. … Central Valley High grad Ryan Looney has signed a contract extension at Idaho State.  

Whitworth: The Pirates traveled to Salem, Ore. And handled Willamette easily.

Preps: On a busy night in the area, Dave Nichols traveled to Central Valley to focus on the 4A girls’ battle between the Bears and Gonzaga Prep. CV won 65-53. … Colin Mulvany has a photo report from the game. … Dave returns with a roundup of Friday night’s games.

Chiefs: Spokane fell 5-2 at Everett.

Indians: Hillsboro will be the first High-A team with a female manager.

Seahawks: Geno Smith is the headline. Drew Lock is the subhead.

Storm: Breanna Stewart is trying to decide her future. The free agent is meeting with four teams.

Kraken: This type of story is always interesting.

Sounders: Seattle has announced a new sponsorship deal.

Mariners: What awaits each player this season? There are projections.

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• After a spring-like week or so in the Inland Northwest, winter has decided it’s a good time to return. To which we say, darn it. Or something like that. We could see snow this afternoon and evening. The squirrels, who have been especially racy lately, won’t like it. Until later …