THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE, Sunday, September 27, 2015

Never fails.

Once you find something you like, or something that helps you function properly in life, enjoy it while you can — because it often doesn’t last.

Side-elastic jeans.

Record racks that hold 45s.

VHS tape cabinets.

And the University of Montana’s old copper-colored jerseys.

THE GRIZ trotted out those iconic copper jerseys for Saturday’s football game vs. Northern Arizona, a way of honoring the 1995 Montana national championship squad — which, as it turned out, was the last Grizzly football team to wear the copper jerseys. It was also a nod back to the days of innocence, before money began to rule sports.

Living in the region in the 1980s and ’90s, it was easy to get hooked on Grizzly athletics. Their football and men’s basketball teams were exciting to watch. Football games at Washington-Grizzly Stadium are events in themselves, even before the game. Inside the stadium, there isn’t a bad seat in the house, you feel like you’re close to the field no matter where you sit, and depending on which side of the stadium you’re sitting, you can fill dead time by looking above the seating on the other side and watching people hike up the hill to the “M.”

And their copper unis made them unique — how could you not root for a team that wore copper? Who else wears copper?

Ah, but after that 1995 national championship season, Montana switched back to maroon jerseys, which it had worn long ago, before wearing copper. Apparently, maroon is a more marketable color, as merchandise sales for the school went through the roof after the switch. Either that, or everybody who wanted something in Grizzly copper already had it. Or both.

Anyway, as memory serves, the Grizzlies in maroon football jerseys looked an awful lot like Washington State — so much for being unique.

Since Montana went away from copper after the 1995 national title season, the Griz have won just one national title — and that was 14 years ago. They’ve made the playoffs 17 times in the 19 seasons since, and lost five times in the national title game. They’ve missed the playoffs twice in the last five seasons, been eliminated at home five times in the last 10 years, including three times in the first round.

Coincidence? Karma? Or both?

OF COURSE, schools switching colors is not unique to Montana. Whatever their uniform supplier says, goes, since their suggestions are usually followed by a large check.

Look at the aforementioned WSU. Most of their stuff is crimson, but every now and then, they trot out those god-awful gray uniforms with red numbers. Only the Cougar diehards would recognize their team in those unis at a glance.

At this rate, the Civil War football will not be between Oregon and Oregon State, but rather between the Nike Ducks and the Under Armour Beavers. Or something like that.

NFL teams introduced alternate, or throwback, uniforms years ago, as a way to break up the monotony — but mostly to sell a few more jerseys. Even the San Francisco 49ers caved in and played their season opener in black jerseys, with red numbers. Not only were the numbers hard to read, the jerseys overall looked like … well, let’s just hope they don’t subject us to those jerseys too much more in the future.

OF COURSE, one thing still holds true — if your team is winning, they can wear whatever color they want. Had the Griz fielded terrible teams during their copper days, those unis would have been mothballed, pronto.

Non-Boise State fanatics chide the Broncos for playing on a blue football field. And yes, when the Broncos wear all blue for a night game, the angle of the lights makes the players hard to see while watching them on TV. But at the time, playing on “the blue” made Boise unique — and still does, though their play over the past decade has made them stand as well, no matter what color field they play on.

Same with Eastern. There was some snickering over the Eagles putting in a red football field a few years back — what if the color of the field faded after years under the penetrating Eastern Washington sun — imagine all the pink field jokes?

But it gave Eastern an identity at the time, and attracted a few more eyeballs from the WSU- and Gonzaga-crazed Spokane area. Now the Eags are one of the top football teams in FBS.

Of course, not all attempts at thinking outside the box when it comes to colors goes over well.

Many years ago, while living in Sandpoint, I was put in charge of ordering T-shirts for our team for an upcoming mushball tournament. Orange is one of my favorite colors, so I picked bright orange — I wanted an orange T-shirt, and figured my teammates wouldn’t mind one either.

After that, for some reason, I was never put in charge of ordering the T-shirts again.

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