The Front Row with JASON ELLIOTT July 23, 2011

The sounds of whistles blowing, pads cracking and the lights on Friday nights are enough to get some out of bed on most days.

Somehow I found myself jumping out of bed, losing sleep and just waiting patiently for some good news on the NFL lockout.

My patience is nearing the end.

AFTER A week of listening to talks on ESPN on whether the deal was made, it got time to tune it out.

For as much as was reported, there was no news.

As of Thursday, only the Hall of Fame game between Chicago and St. Louis has been lost and hopefully that will be it.

And after listening to talks non-stop for the past two weeks about a settlement looming, it has begun to hurt my ears.

Both sides have done a lot of damage to the game that has been so popular for longer than I can remember.

THERE HAS been something about watching football on Friday nights that has been something I've enjoyed working as a sports reporter for almost 10 years.

From my early days as a reporter of watching Wallace and Kellogg slug it out in the Silver Valley to watching Lake City, Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls and Lakeland take the field, games are played every Friday night, without incident from August to mid-November.

Players aren't out for money, or in front of national television audiences. They are playing for the love of the game.

They don't turn to Twitter before a game or have their names run across any crawlers I've seen about just how good their fantasy numbers are.

What seems to be lost in the lockout is that the fans, the ones that put the money in the players' and owners' pockets, are left to wonder just when they can see their team again.

At the high school level, there is a 99.9 percent chance that if your local high school team has a game scheduled, you're going to get it.

The last time I was at a high school game that was postponed, or moved, it wasn't because the athletic directors and principals of the schools decided they weren't going to allow the game to go on - it was because of lightning and a rainstorm.

With high school teams, there's a guarantee that if a game doesn't get played when scheduled, you know that they'll do everything possible to make it happen in a timely manner.

WILL I tune in to games on television once the lockout is lifted? Most likely.

Am I going to worry about taking days off to watch a game live? Not right away.

If that makes me a bad fan, so be it.

Those Friday night games haven't let me down yet.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email [email protected].