THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Preps trying to keep up to speed, just not in person

Can a business offer curbside services if it doesn’t have a curb?

Anyway, on Wednesday, Idaho governor Brad Little extended his stay-home order two weeks, through April 30, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Idaho State Board of Education, which has issued a “soft closure” of the state’s schools through the end of the school year, is expected to provide an update today. The SBOE has left it up to individual school districts to decide whether to open later this school year or not, and a few — none in North Idaho — have chosen to officially shut down for the year.

And the Idaho High School Activities Association is expected to update its status on spring sports Friday. The IHSAA, which has been loosely following the SBOE’s recommendations, has suspended all spring sports activities through April 20, though that figures to be extended Friday.

The only question, it seems, is whether there will still be hope of an abbreviated spring sports season, or if the IHSAA will decide to pull the plug on spring sports.

Meanwhile, we wondered how a couple of local coaches were adapting, with everything — school, meetings, etc. — taking place via the internet.

THEY WOULDN’T be practicing, but Coeur d’Alene High football coach Shawn Amos would still be around his players.

“I would have them in the weight room,” said Amos, who also runs the weight training program at the schools. “I see those kids every day, so it’s kinda weird for me to not see them every day in the weight room. I teach most of them, and I have ’em after school, so it’s a weird void, not just in my life, but also in my coaches’ lives ... it’s just crazy.”

Can you teach weightlifting virtually?

“We give them a fitness log that they fill out on Google Classroom,” Amos said. “Most of them don’t have access to weight equipment, nothing’s open for that. Hiking Canfield ... you can do a lot of body-weight stuff. I’ve sent a lot of suggestions on movements they can do, to try to stay active.

“The biggest thing right now is keeping ’em moving, so they’re not sitting around all day.”

Through the wonders of Zoom, Amos is able to meet with his coaches and players via the internet.

“We’ve had a lot of kids in our position group meetings,” Amos said. “We’ve actually been able to meet with them a little bit more, as far as install stuff, because we can get on Zoom and meet with them that way. Which we couldn’t do (normally), because many of them would be in spring sports and school ... ”

He said his coaches are also trying to make the best of this downtime.

“They’re not sitting around; they’re researching, they’re studying, we’re debating stuff,” Amos said. “We’re talking about what can we do better, now that we have this little window of time? Let’s dive into some things that we typically don’t have time for. Let’s find a way to be better when we get back with our kids.”

Any wonder why the Vikings have played for the state title six times in the last 10 seasons?

POST FALLS is coming off its fifth state wrestling title in the past six seasons.

Normally, these days, the Trojans would be competing at freestyle and Greco-Roman tournaments, as part of their “offseason.”

“It’s not a lot different for the kids, other than they can’t hang out and wrestle together,” Post Falls coach Pete Reardon said.

So how do you keep them busy?

“Right now, just encourage them to go online and watch some video ... and some do. My son (Lane) watches tons of FloWrestling ... he’s been watching a lot of technique, and watching a lot of matches. I don’t know if it helps, or makes it worse for him.”

Because it whets his appetite for something he can’t have.

“Like Ridge Lovett (an undefeated four-time state champion at Post Falls, who recently completed his freshman season at Nebraska) was home for a couple of weeks, and Lane really wanted to go work out with him,” Reardon said. “And normally they would go up (to the high school wrestling room) and roll around every day, or every other day, but they couldn’t work out. So he was really bummed out.”

Summer camps — not just in wrestling, but football and basketball and other sports as well — could also become a casualty of the pandemic.

The dilemma is, no one really knows when things will return to “normal.”

“Obviously we’ll make it through whatever happens,” Reardon said. “But I feel for those seniors, and those kids that are going to be seniors next year, if things get canceled next year ... ”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.