THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016

The sight of the lights shining across Lake Pend Oreille as you drive across the Long Bridge into Sandpoint for a Bulldog football game ... trying to remember which side street you parked on, so after the game and the interviews you can make a beeline for the Daily Bee with (hopefully) enough time to file a story on deadline ... joyful Bulldog football players racing to the south end of Barlow Stadium to ring the victory bell after a particularly noteworthy win ...

I WAS privileged enough to be able to cover high school football games (as well as many soccer games, and even a powder puff game or two) at Memorial Field in Sandpoint, later renamed Barlow Stadium at War Memorial Field, for 16 seasons. The stadium had a charm all its own, from the wooden bleachers with the fans so close to the field, to seeing the beauty of nearby Lake Pend Oreille before the sun went down.

And if anyone starts to take the uniqueness of those surroundings for granted, just leave town and listen to fans of visiting teams gush about the experience at Barlow Stadium.

Starting this week, the wooden bleachers will come down, to be replaced by a new, similarly roofed grandstand, with aluminum bleachers.

And an era of memories will come down with it.

The press box being all but right on top of the field — to the point where you could almost have a conversation with the folks upstairs as you walked the sidelines, taking pictures ... Cliff Irish’s logging truck, parked on the street behind the north end zone ... The cement mixer with the giant Bulldog logo, slowly spinning round and round (not sure if that’s a Barlow Stadium memory, but I always thought that was a cool idea) ... locals lining each sideline, as well as behind the south end zone.

SINCE I was usually taking photos at the games I was covering, I didn’t spend that much time in the press box, but when I did ... what a great place to cover a game from. In the old days, you entered the press box from the back of the grandstands, navigating stairs on a dimly lit and tight passageway to the top ... and if someone was coming out of the stairs and down the box at the same time — well, you both had to make yourself real skinny.

I remember, for a few years, they put weight restrictions on the press box — only “essential” personnel were allowed up there.

From the drawings of the new, aluminum grandstand, which will replace the 65-year-old bleachers, the press box will be at the back of the grandstand — not quite as close as before, but, without a track circling most football fields, still closer than most press boxes.

The first playoff game at the stadium, in 1986, when a running back headed to UCLA and a quarterback bound for Stanford led Mountain Home to a 26-3 victory over Sandpoint on a chilly Saturday afternoon ... Fast forward to 11 years later, Sandpoint’s next home playoff game, a victory over Lake City on a muddy Barlow Stadium field (that was Lake City’s first playoff game, the start of a pretty impressive run by the Timberwolves) ... being told, in the early 1980s, by some of the old-timers that soccer would be played at Memorial Field “over my dead body.” Well, we know how that turned out.

ONE OF the more emotional games at Barlow Stadium took place a few days after “Cotton” Barlow, the former Sandpoint (and Coeur d’Alene High) coach, and after whom the stadium was named, died.

His son, Bill, was the coach of the Bulldogs at the time, and understandably was away from the team for a time in the run-up to the game. No one knew what was going to happen on Friday night.

But the atmosphere was electric, the Bulldogs put on an inspired performance that would have made Cotton — and did make Bill — proud, in a blowout victory.

One of the heroes of the game for Sandpoint was a kid with the last name of Kramer — no relation for the former Bulldog, Idaho and Green Bay Packers great Jerry Kramer, who played for Cotton Barlow in the 1950s.

But still, consider the irony of a player named Kramer playing such an key role on a night so important to a coach named Barlow.

WE’LL FINISH with a story.

No, not the one about the clogged toilet in the visitors locker room.

Here’s another one.

This one took place my first season.

Sandpoint was trailing by a few points late in the fourth quarter, and faced a fourth down and 18 yards to go, near midfield. The Bulldogs called timeout.

With the game on the line, they ran ... a draw play. Yes, a draw play.

More incredulously, after making it through the line, the fullback somehow drifted to the outside and powered down the near sideline, getting the first down with a yard or two to spare.

The Bulldogs scored a few plays later, and won the game.

In the coaches office after the game, I asked the coach, “So what possessed you to call a draw play on fourth-and-18, with the game on the line?”

He looked at me and said:

“It worked, didn’t it?”

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@CdAPressSports.