Holiday wish list for sports
Since ‘tis the season, here’s a few things that might make nice holiday “presents”:
Football stadiums: The recent decision — for now at least — to tear down Albi Stadium and built a smaller stadium (Albi Lite?) on the same site, in northwest Spokane was an interesting one.
The people pushing for the new stadium wanted it downtown — saying it could attract other things like a soccer team, and concerts, that might not come to Spokane if the facility was not downtown.
That fact would make a new stadium more appealing downtown — plus it would improve downtown.
But a majority of the voting citizenry preferred building on the Albi site to building downtown, and the school board in Spokane decided to abide by the voters.
Never mind that, with Gonzaga Prep having its own stadium, and Mead and Mt. Spokane planning to build one for them to share, and the Spokane Valley schools having suitable home stadiums, the number of schools needing a stadium to play in is now down to five — Ferris, Lewis and Clark, Rogers, North Central and Shadle Park.
I guess they’ve got to play somewhere, and it’s been determined it will not be on their campuses.
Anyway, that got me to thinking to about 10 years ago, when there was talk of putting artificial turf down on the football fields at Coeur d’Alene and Lake City high schools.
Seemed like a good idea at the time — then the economy famously tanked, and there hasn’t been much talk about it since.
Artificial turf would help come playoff time, when both fields at Cd’A and Lake City start to get a little muddy. And then there’s the other sports/activities an artificial turf field could be used for, saving wear and tear on a grass field.
I guess another option would have been to build one football stadium the two schools would share — perhaps between the two schools, in the median of U.S. 95 — but I couldn’t see that working out.
That would almost be like asking Kellogg, Wallace and Mullan to agree on anything.
North Idaho College: Repeat Northwest Athletic Conference championships for the Cardinal men’s basketball and softball teams wouldn’t be too farfetched.
Both teams return their star players from last year, Utah State signee RayQuan Evans (men’s basketball) and Saint Leo signee Madi Mott (softball).
That the Cardinal men, in particular, are able to still recruit at an NJCAA level, despite the limitations of NWAC recruiting, is impressive.
University of Idaho football: To be able to recruit the state’s FCS-level talent to Moscow. Landing a verbal commit from star Rocky Mountain running back Nick Romano was nice.
When the Vandals were caught in the middle during their 22 seasons in FBS, fans who wanted change wanted two things — one, return to the Big Sky, and play teams fans have heard of; and two, recruit more local players.
Even though Montana clobbered Idaho in November, there was a definite buzz when the Griz returned to the Kibbie Dome as a league foe.
It’s a start.
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.