A Grip on Sports: There is little that illustrates fall more than looking forward to high school football with the newspaper’s help

A GRIP ON SPORTS • When thinking about autumn, many things come quickly to mind. The color of the changing leaves. The earlier sunsets. Geese honking overhead as they head south. Oh, and not the least of them, high school football.

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• There is no other sport that attracts the interest of a community more than football. Sure, in some places, and at some schools, basketball can rival it, but football begins the school year and sets a tone. The sport offers more than just the games. It builds a community.

Years ago, our brother-in-law was a sought-after high school principal who was brought in to help fix schools in need. He told us one of the first things he did when taking over a high school with issues was examine the football program. If he felt they were needed, he made changes. If not, he offered support. Either way, he devoted energy and whatever resources he could drum up to help in the program’s success.

Why? Simple. A successful football program got the year off to a positive start. Allowed the school’s stakeholders – his word – a high-profile entity to rally around. Earned positive vibes in the area media. You may scoff, but it worked for him. And the schools he dealt with.

The high school football season is upon is. You can debate whether its oversize footprint is a good or a bad thing, but it’s not debatable it’s there. Even in the Inland Northwest, which has a more nuanced (and balanced) view of high school football than, say, Texas or Florida or California.

The best part of high school football for us? Not the wins and losses. We’ve seen both a thousand times over the years. But the growth of the participants, physically and mentally in their four years, transforming from sallow freshmen to experienced seniors.

All high school sports offer that to some degree but football adds in more physicality, more coordinated interaction among the participants and, yes, more outside focus, than the others. It’s the biggest sport of them all. And it’s on now.

• Why bring it up? Mainly because today on the S-R’s website, there are a handful of stories on the new season. Stories covering Spokane’s schools, those Eastern Washington schools outside the city limits and those throughout North Idaho.

Somehow, Dave Nichols has been able to pull it all together while still covering the Spokane Indians and other subjects.

But the coverage doesn’t end with football. There are other fall sports, and they have their moment in the sun as well, with volleyball, soccer and cross country previews on the site.

Enjoy.

• It was easy to enjoy the Mariners’ win Wednesday, as the offense woke up and supported another strong Logan Gilbert outing. Three home runs – none from Julio Rodriguez, surprisingly – keyed the 8-4 win but it was Gilbert who set the tone, throwing five strong innings before running out of gas in the sixth.

This time the bullpen came through and held the Reds scoreless until Andres Munoz gave up a solo home run in the bottom of the ninth.

• Let’s get back to football, shall we?

The 400,000-pound blue whale of sports kicks off tonight as the NFL season begins. The defending champion Chiefs host Detroit on NBC (5:20 p.m. kick).

Last weekend, as the NFL prepped for the season, college football played on Thursday night. This week? Crickets. The NFL has decided it is landing and everyone else clears the runway.

Saturday is different, with the Pac-12 putting an undefeated record on the line – spoiler alert: the conference won’t be undefeated by this time Sunday, even if we throw out the loss bound to happen when USC hosts Stanford – and another week of interconference matchups dominating the schedule.

The Seahawks kick off their season in a late game Sunday, hosting the Rams, who won’t be bringing Cooper Kupp with them. The EWU star is out with a hamstring injury.

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WSU: We talked about high school football today before we read Greg Woods’ story about Cougar safety Jaden Hicks. In it, Greg tells us Hicks missed his senior season, as everyone in Nevada did, due to COVID-19. That had to be a crushing blow for any high school player, let alone those with Hicks’ talent and college prospects. … Mike Leach had already left Pullman by then, but his friendship with a Cougar fan lived on until his death. John Canzano writes about it this morning. … The WSU game with No. 19 Wisconsin makes this Athletic list of the weekend’s best games. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, the conference’s success makes its soon-to-be demise all that more perplexing. … So is picking this week’s games, though Jon Wilner takes a crack in the Mercury News. … Christian Caple has his power rankings for the week. … Jalen McMillan is back at Washington because he felt he had more to offer. … Oregon will face a tough environment in Lubbock without a key player but with a new toy for the players. … Oregon State’s win at San Jose State was watched by a lot of people. But, you know, the Beavers and the Cougars aren’t popular enough for the networks. Right. … Boulder should be rocking Saturday as undefeated Colorado hosts former rival Nebraska, which has struggled since joining the Big Ten. … Just doing your kicking job well in Utah gets you cheered. … Stanford’s Ashton Daniels made his first college start on the road. Now he makes his second with a much-tougher opponent across the ball. The quarterback will face No. 6 USC. The Trojans’ quarterback is not going to allow just any NFL team to draft him. We hear echoes of John Elway all those years ago. … UCLA’s defense has been making a quick impact. … Why the heck is Arizona State holding its annual blackout game in September and its 100-plus-degree heat? … Last year Mississippi State ran  Leach’s Air Raid. This Saturday, Arizona will see something completely different. … In basketball news, the ACC is going to add even more challenges for the struggling men at California and Stanford.

EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, Dan Thompson has his weekly conference-wide notebook, focusing upon what’s happening in the conference. Montana State has the toughest assignment, facing top-ranked South Dakota State on the road.

Preps: Before we get to linking all the stories in the fall sports preview section, we wanted to pass along Dave’s roundup of Wednesday action. … Remember Bremerton assistant coach Joe Kennedy? He’s leaving after coaching one game this year, headed to live in Florida. … Now on to the section. Dave kicks it off with a quick story on the downtown stadium, which is now set to open at the end of the month. … Dave also has a feature on two Mt. Spokane football players, another on Rogers’ star running back and capsule summaries of the Greater Spokane League and Great Northern League schools. … Greg Lee returns to the S-R pages, taking care of the cross country previews, for the boys and the girls. He also has capsule summaries of each team. … Madison McCord has features on Ridgeline and Pullman volleyball. There are also short previews of the GSL schools. … Dave returns with a preview of GSL slowpitch, with a look at North Central and capsules on each team. … Justin Reed handles the girls soccer previews, with a story on a Cheney standout and the summaries of the GSL schools’ programs. … From across the border, Liam Bradford has a story on a standout Lakeland kicker while Dave adds the capsules on each North Idaho football team.

Indians: Spokane picked up a last-week-of-the-season win at Hillsboro, 4-2. Dave has more in this story.

Chiefs: The exhibition season is underway, with Spokane dropping a 5-2 decision to the newly relocated Wenatchee Wild.

Mariners: Of all the positives this season, the most unexpected is the power improvement of shortstop J.P. Crawford. He had one of the M’s three home runs in the 8-4 victory. … Cal Raleigh is even more important this season.

Seahawks: The odds of winning it all this season are much improved for the Hawks, though that didn’t seem to bother them in last year’s surprising season. … Bobby Wagner is back. Back where he belongs. Pete Carroll certainly appreciates him. … Sunday’s opener is against the franchise he spent last season with, the Rams. … Jordyn Brooks is back as well, quicker than most expected from an ACL injury. … Will Devon Witherspoon be on the field too? … Improve on third down and the offense will score more often.

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• One thing we love (and hate) about high school football in this part of the country. The season begins with the fans wearing shorts and T-shirts. It ends with the same folks wearing snow pants and parkas. Talk about the changing seasons. Until later …