The Front Row with MARK NELKE April 1, 2012

| April 1, 2012 9:00 PM

I just wanted to let you know how excited I am to be writing today's column.

I'm excited these days, even though most of the high school sports schedule to date has been rained out, and the future looks a lot more cloudy than bright. Despite all that, I'm excited.

I'm excited that my 49ers signed Josh Johnson to be the backup quarterback for Alex Smith, though I'm excited that he will have the opportunity to beat out Alex for the starting job. And even though he didn't get an introductory press conference like some other backup quarterbacks this week, I'm still excited.

And if it turns out that Colin Kaepernick becomes the 49ers quarterback, I would be excited about that as well.

I'm even excited the Seahawks signed Matt Flynn, even though as a 49ers fan, I would be more excited to see the possibility of Tarvaris Jackson winging the ball to the other team. And even though Flynn didn't get his own press conference either, I'm excited, though perhaps the Seahawks know something we don't. Anyway, I'm real excited to see how the NFC West plays out this year.

I'M EXCITED that the regular season in major league baseball starts this week. Yes, I know that technically it started last week with two games in Japan, though it was hard to get excited about watching the broadcasts with the Mariners TV crew holed up in a studio in Bellevue, Wash., calling the game.

Apparently the Mariners weren't too excited about paying to send two more bodies to Tokyo, so they kept the TV announcers home. I would have been more excited it they had sent the announcers and kept a couple of players home that didn't hit.

Anyway, I'm excited to see if the Mariners will hit any better on the mainland than they did overseas. If so, I'll be excited to see if they can challenge the Rangers and the Angels in the AL West.

I’M EXCITED about the Masters coming up this week. I’m excited to see if Tiger Woods is really back, excited to see if he can win major No. 15. It’s exciting whenever Tiger is in the hunt in a golf tournament, even more exciting when it’s in a major.

It’s probably not as exciting for the other players, because they have a better chance of winning when Tiger is hitting the ball all over the place or pulling out of tournaments because of injuries. But I’m excited.

And it will be exciting to see which cities are selected to host the early round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in the 2014, 2015 and 2016. The NCAA should be deciding that sometime this year, and it will be an exciting time.

The local fans are probably excited about the possibility of Spokane hosting the games again, as the Lilac City — not to be confused with the Lake City — hosted the tournament in 2003, 2007 and 2010. However, the people at the Spokane Arena want to add 750 more seats to the Arena so it will seat the new NCAA minimum of 12,000 for the tournament.

It will be exciting to see if the Spokane voters will approve this fundraising measure. If not, local college basketball fans will still be excited, but will have to go elsewhere to get their NCAA tournament fix.

Like Boise, which is excited to get back in the rotation of hosting the NCAAs. However, if they’re really that excited about hosting for the first time since 2009, hopefully they’ve invested in some light bulbs for their scoreboard since then — I swear some of them were burned out the last time the NCAAs played there. That would make for a more exciting time at Taco Bell Arena — and it would be even more exciting if they create more room to walk around the arena. Right now, it’s really cramped. Not very exciting.

Or Seattle, which is excited to bring the NCAAs back for the first time since 2004. Since they blew up the Kingdome in 2000, the NCAA hasn’t been as excited about bringing the tournament back to Seattle, which lacks a building big enough to host a regional or a Final Four. But KeyArena is big enough for the earlier rounds, and that would be exciting for the people of that area.

I’M ALSO excited about the Idaho Vandals trying to turn it around following a definitely un-exciting 2-10 season last year. The potential for a new starting quarterback, and with a new offensive coordinator should spark some more excitement in the program.

And the addition of a couple of Coeur d’Alene Viking stars to the program should be exciting as well, and if and/or when they start to make contributions to the program, it will be really exciting.

Also, I was very excited about Friday night’s Mega Millions drawing, though I would have been a little more excited had one of the winners been from North Idaho.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.