THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: In search of answers, COVID-19 or otherwise

Anything happen this week?

Hmmm ...

The major pro sports leagues are gearing up to play again — whether the players want to or not — after their seasons were put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some players have tested positive for the virus, some teams have pulled out, and some players, worried about the circumstances if they tested positive, have dropped out.

The Pac-12 followed the lead of the Big “Ten” and said it would play only conference games this fall — depriving the Idaho Vandals of a potential statement victory over Washington State in football.

The governing body for Washington high school athletics has pushed back the beginning of the fall sports season for two weeks — leaving Idaho schools scrambling to re-do their schedules, particularly in football, where many North Idaho schools were scheduled to play Washington schools in football those first two weeks of the season — the ones that were just canceled.

The Northwest Athletic Conference, which includes North Idaho College, pushed back the start of most of its sports for the 2020-21 school year — now most will start in January 2021 or later.

The commissioner of the Pac-12 tested positive for COVID-19 — and that wasn’t even the biggest news of the day in that conference, coming on the same day the league chopped nonconference games from its schedules.

And that’s not counting any kind of personal losses North Idaho sports fans and any other residents of the region may have suffered this week.

AT FIRST during this pandemic, the showing of old, “classic” games were a welcome substitute for the lack of live sports. But after a while, the novelty of that wore off — how many times can you watch the Mariners play the Yankees in the 1995 AL Division Series?

OK, maybe that’s a bad example — Seattle fans could probably watch those games forever, because they’ve had so little to cheer for since then. But still ...

Now we’re getting live sports back, but (mostly) with no fans.

At first, we were thirsty for that — four guys playing golf by themselves was must-see TV.

Even The Basketball Tournament — which looks like a heckuva Men’s League tourney — is appealing.

The (mostly) fan-less setting has spread to the return of auto racing and soccer.

And though we’re kinda starting to miss the lack of atmosphere at these events, live sports are still better than no live sports.

Korea Baseball Organization games are good ones to go to sleep by, but they’ve helped fill the void until the major leaguers return.

Followed by the NBA. Then the NHL.

Playing in front of, at most, family and friends.

And when (if?) an NBA champion is finally crowned, the on-court celebration might look similar to a Men’s League team winning a city title.

IS THERE a good theory why people think pushing sports to the spring (or at least to January 2021) is the answer?

Is it to avoid the inevitable “second wave” of cases?

Do people think the virus will magically go away if we wait long enough?

Is it the hope a vaccine will be ready by then?

In the meantime, the more the medical experts tell us we’re doing a poor job dealing with this pandemic, as regions set single-day records for positive tests on a near-daily basis, the more those medical experts are told by their superiors to go to their rooms.

IF THE NWAC is on to something with its delayed sports calendar in 2020-21, there’s going to be some interesting confluences with the Idaho high school sports schedules — if those even unfold on schedule.

(And if they do, the sites for the spring sports state events will remain the same as they did in 2020, when the spring sports championships were canceled. That means state golf is in North Idaho (5As at Avondale, 4As at The Links, 3As at The Highlands and 2As at Circling Raven). And state softball, which normally rotates to North Idaho every other year, will be in the Boise area, like it was supposed to be this year. The North is scheduled to get state softball back in 2022.)

The first NWAC championship would be the men’s and women’s basketball championships, set for May 14-16 at a site TBD. That’s the weekend of state-qualifying spring sports events for high schoolers.

Men’s and women’s golf is set for a Sunday-Monday event scheduled for May 16-17 — ending on the first day of the two-day state high school golf tournaments.

The NWAC softball tourney is slated for May 21-23 — the same weekend as most of the high school spring sports championships. That has happened before, though softball has usually finished up on the following Monday — this year’s event is scheduled to end on a Sunday.

The NWAC volleyball and men’s and women’s soccer tourneys are slated for June 4-6. Hopefully the volleyball venue has air conditioning.

Maybe the NWAC is on to something.

In any event, the way this year has gone so far, we’ll take what we can get, and like it.

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