The Front Row with JASON ELLIOTT March 16, 2011

For a while over the weekend, it was good to be a sports fan.

The North-South All-Star basketball games and NCAA men’s and women’s selection show served as a great distraction from thinking about what reality awaited once I slowed down long enough to realize it.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON started out like any normal day in March, some early morning college basketball mixed in on three different channels.

While watching top-seeded North Carolina seem like they’d never played a single game together, they began to mount a rally, eventually beating Miami on the final shot of the day.

From that point on — it was a total blur.

There’s a good chance that there were other games on that day, but I couldn’t tell you who won.

In fact, after noon, I’m not even sure who was even playing.

The next day was a little better, which at that moment, couldn’t have been much worse.

Both games were impressive for the fact that the North didn’t seem to have much trouble showing they were the best of the best on Saturday — between Sydney Butler’s 18 points in the girls game for MVP honors and Connor Hill shooting lights out in the boys game for 26 points and MVP.

They also served as entertaining because where else are you going to see a boys basketball team score 138 points, hit 18 3-pointers and pull down 70 rebounds?

The North girls pulled down 58 rebounds and could have won by more, had it not been for a few too many turnovers.

On Sunday afternoon, the Gonzaga men’s basketball team had to wait until the very end of their selection show, but found out they’d be playing St. John’s University in Denver, a far cry from having to travel back to New York a year ago for the opening round.

But that’s not the most important thing that I took away from the weekend.

THESE GAMES, while serving as entertainment for everyone that was involved, helped me keep my mind off losing one of my biggest fans.

It’s been five days since my grandmother passed away and while the shock wore off on Sunday afternoon, the memories haven’t.

When I needed a boost, all I had to do was call her.

Along those same lines, whenever I needed to know what was going on in the big city of Mullan, her phone was the first I dialed.

A few weeks ago, when I needed a ride to the NJCAA wrestling tournament in Spokane, she loaned me her car to make sure that all those events got covered in a timely fashion.

For that — I couldn’t thank her enough.

And after catching my breath following a week of basketball, spring sports phone calls and other sporting events, there wasn’t much left to say.

I just didn’t have time to think about it.

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 e-mail at jelliott@cdapress.com.