A Grip on Sports: The state of mind that is spring is popping out this week, along with the bulbs, even as the sport that dominates winter is reaching its zenith
A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s time. For what, you ask? Spring cleaning. Even if it isn’t even spring. Even if it isn’t even Daylight Saving Time yet. It’s just time.
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• Daylight Saving Time hits Sunday. The day an hour of sleep disappears. Spring? It’s on tap for March 20th. A Friday. But in actuality, the change from winter to spring is more of an emotional event, not a calendar-specific one. And my emotions are overflowing with thoughts of how much I love the sun. The longer daylight hours. The green grass, blue sky and the multi-colored flowers. So much so, cleaning out the debris left over from winter seems more like a labor of love than a chore.
• It’s almost time to sweep out the basketball gyms throughout the area.
Oh sure, Gonzaga’s place needs to be heated for a few more weeks. The lights have to be kept on in Pullman, Moscow, Cheney and up at Whitworth. At least this week.
But the high school ones? They can be shuttered after Saturday night.
The B tournaments have invaded the Spokane Arena. The other classifications are occupying domes in Tacoma and Yakima. The next three days are all about determining which teams get to cut down nets and which have to sit in a quiet locker room and bid adieu to seniors the younger players have known their entire lives.
It’s almost Dickens-like. A gloriously happy time. A heartbreaking ending.
It’s high school sports.
• With the World Baseball Classic already underway, MLB’s spring training takes on another hue of green. Bright, actually. More names in the box scores unknown to the average fan. The stars are elsewhere, helping their country try to reach the pinnacle of the baseball world.
If you’re wondering, the favored United States team begins pool play Friday. Against the powerhouse from Brazil. Wait, that last sentence could only be true this summer, when soccer’s World Cup is scheduled for the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
• Scheduled, yes. But with all that is going in the Middle East, one has to wonder if the World Cup will go off without a few changes. At the least, there may have to be some substitutions in the roster of nations.
• Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, whose 11-year South Bend tenure seemed longer than that and a million years ago, died Wednesday in Orlando, Fla. He was 89 years old.
Holtz may have been college football’s greatest salesman. He sold the product. He sold the Irish. And he sold an image as a jovial, kind gentleman who cared about the game.
There is no denying he was good at coaching, though his short NFL tenure belied that. It was with the Jets, however, so that’s probably worth a pass.
It’s his success at Notre Dame that matters. He won 100 games there. He won the Irish’s last national title in 1988. He recruited and nurtured their last Heisman winner, receiver Tim Brown.
And he left. Said he was retired. Then re-surfaced a couple years late at South Carolina.
Then there were his issues with the NCAA, back when the NCAA could actually enforce rules. Holtz ran afoul of the enforcement arm three times. At Notre Dame. At Minnesota. At South Carolina.
Holtz made everyone laugh. He was great in press conferences and on TV. But above all else, he won football games. Lots of them.
• If you have an itch, scratch it. Or put some lotion on it.
That was always my mom’s advice. But that doesn’t work when the itch involves golf. And when the weather starts to turn, as it seems to have in the Spokane area – yesterday’s sometimes heavy rain showers notwithstanding – the golf itch begins.
Heck, just swinging a club in the backyard helps. Even if the body is unable to turn like it used to. Or every time the clubhead moves forward, your shoulder feels as if it is going to detach and follow it down the line. Or just bending over to put a tee in the ground feels like climbing K2.
Yep, no anti-itch cream needed. The emotional tug of the game can be scratched out, for me at least, with one trip to a driving range. And the next day’s inevitable barking back. And wrists. And shoulders.
When is the Masters on TV?
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WSU: The West Coast Conference basketball tournament starts today in Las Vegas. The final WCC one for Washington State’s men and women. It would seem appropriate if at least one of the two teams made a run through the event and shocked the hoop world. Then again, Oregon State and Gonzaga are also leaving the conference for the newly constituted Pac-12, so there are others vying for the same leave-with-a-title goal. Greg Woods tries to define how the Cougar men can put together a solid showing at the Orleans Arena. … Greg Lee takes on the same task with the WSU women. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, there is a wide gap between the top six or seven schools and the rest of the field. … Could the changing face of college athletics cost North Carolina fans an on campus basketball stadium? Maybe. … Washington’s men earned a Senior Night win thanks to the efforts of a freshman who also won’t be around next season. That sound you heard late Wednesday? That was USC’s NCAA hopes breaking into a million pieces following the 91-72 loss. … Arizona State has no such hopes. But a recent win over No. 14 Kansas allows the Sun Devils to dream. … How has Arizona’s recent conference titles compared to each other? Both have been satisfying. … San Diego State has struggled recently. … With Utah State losing, New Mexico had a shot to vault into the Mountain West lead. But Colorado State, the conference’s hottest team, took the Lobos down last night. In the Pit. … The Cal women opened ACC tournament play with a win over Wake Forest, bolstering their NCAA at-large credentials. … Stanford went the other way, losing in overtime to Miami. The Cardinal are in danger of missing the NCAAs for the second consecutive season. … Washington seems assured of a spot. … Oregon opened the Big Ten tournament with a win over Purdue. Next up is Maryland. … Colorado is ready for the Big 12 tournament to start. … So is Utah, which needs a long run to make the postseason. … Arizona State began its run with a win over rival Arizona. … In football news, the Go-Go offense is just fine for Colorado quarterback JuJu Lewis. … Utah’s offensive line is being coached by a Utes legend. … The USC defense has to learn a new language.
Gonzaga: OK, I’m a little surprised. There are still academic awards handed out? Wait. I thought college sports was all about NIL and free agency and the like these days. They are still students? Yep. And Gonzaga’s men have a couple great ones. Theo Lawson has the story.
Idaho: The Vandals are in football mode. Well, some are. Four soon-to-graduate seniors have stayed on campus and are prepping for the school’s pro day March 30. Peter Harriman joined them for a recent workout and has this story. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Northern Arizona has named an interim athletic director. It’s former athletic director, who resigned, has already found a new job.
Preps: With basketball tournaments starting all over the state, the coverage is far flung and far reaching. We start with Dave Nichols’ coverage of Ridgeline’s 55-41 3A girls loss Wednesday in the Tacoma Dome. The Falcons’ season is over. … Deer Park’s girls last week unexpectedly dropped into the 2A loser-out games. But they survived Mark Morris. The second-seeded Stags face top-seed Lynden today. … From the B tournaments, we can pass along a 2B boys story from Dan Thompson. Tenth-seeded Freeman, despite suffering another injury this week, topped No. 7 Napavine 58-47. The Scotties will meet top-seed and District rival Colfax tonight. … Dan also covered the Colfax girls’ season-ending 53-30 loss to second-seeded Adna. … The Colfax program and community is still dealing with the recent death of boys coach Reece Jenkin. Mathew Callaghan has this story from the Arena. … We can also pass along roundups of B action from the girls and boys.
Indians: We mentioned the WBC above. And there is a Spokane connection. Dave Nichols talked with Indians’ groundskeeper Tony Lee before he headed to Miami to work the pool games that will include the U.S. team.
Mariners: How many games will the M’s win? … No matter what, the bullpen has to do better than it did yesterday. … Bryce Miller is feeling better.
Seahawks: Hey, it’s time for a mock draft. … Will the Hawks have to replace Rashid Shaheed? … There are other roster decisions to make as well.
Kraken: The longest home winning streak in franchise history is over. Done in last night by a 3-2 loss to St. Louis.
Storm: The WNBA collective bargaining agreement is still not hashed out. Which means it’s time for someone to leak rumors the players are divided or some such hogwash. Maybe it’s true, but such buzz always seems to hit just before the final nails are hammered.
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• For those of you who are still young, or relatively so, and are planning a lot of golf in your retirement years, I have a piece of advice. Don’t wait. Play now. You never know what hazards time might throw your way. When it comes to playing these days, I feel a bit like Burgess Meredith in that one “Twilight Zone” episode. I have all the time I need to do what I want. But my glasses have fallen to the ground and broken into pieces. “That’s not fair! That’s not fair at all! There was time now. There was all the time I needed!” Until later …