THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: When in doubt, get 'em a beef stick!

Gift cards are a safe option for that hard-to-shop-for person on your holiday list.

But sometimes people want something they can open and use immediately.

Calendars aren’t a bad idea.

But few people are disappointed when they unwrap a good beef stick on Christmas morning.

So, in handing out awards to the sporting world in 2022 …

… We present the inaugural Beef Stick Awards.

SO …

A beef stick to …

The Idaho Vandals football program, for signing 13 in-state players in the early signing period which concluded Friday, including six from North Idaho.

Many football coaches say the politically correct thing when they say they say they want to recruit local players, because it heightens local interest in the program.

Even better if those local players are key contributors to a program which is coming off just its third winning season this century, and its first FCS playoff appearance since 1995.

North Idaho kids have sporadically played key roles on Vandal football teams in recent years, most recently defensive lineman Nate DeGraw from Post Falls High.

But, peering through black-and-gold-colored glasses in the near future, you can envision …

An opposing quarterback, pressured by rush ends Trevor Miller (Post Falls High) and Matyus McLain (Priest River), scrambling out of the pocket and up the field, where he is walloped by … linebacker Zach Johnson (Lake City).

Or, he is pressured into an ill-advised pass, intercepted by safety Brayden Rice (Lewiston).

And on the other side of the ball, helped by the protection of offensive lineman Alex Green (Lake City), the Idaho QB hits tight end James White (Lewiston) for a key first down.

Unless White, of course, ends up joining Miller and McLain in chasing after quarterbacks.

And a beef stick to …

Coeur d’Alene High, which is planning to build an artificial turf football field.

Until this past fall, the Vikings were a given in the state football playoffs for more than a decade. Rain, and then snow, begins to have an effect on the local high school fields in late October and early November, though at Coeur d’Alene’s Viking Field, field conditions haven’t been TOO awful during the playoffs.

But …

Every now and then, a playoff game has to be moved to the Kibbie Dome in Moscow, rather than be played in the mud and the muck in North Idaho.

There’s a reason folks love the two artificial turf fields at The Fields at Real Life in Post Falls, especially when it rains.

Plus, artificial turf allows another option for state soccer tournaments (see, Memorial Field in Sandpoint), as well as uses for other sports.

Hopefully Lake City High will soon follow with an artificial turf field of its own.

If Post Falls doesn’t want/need turf, perhaps the Trojans can install a large wind screen, for the next time howling winds wreak havoc with a game.

Any light objects that fell to the ground during last month’s Rocky Mountain-Post Falls playoff football game have probably reached the Atlantic Ocean by now.

And a final beef stick to …

The NFL Sunday Ticket, which is moving from DirecTV to YouTube TV next season.

On one hand, this move might not be beef stick-worthy — how quickly can you change channels on an app, if you want to flip from game to game between plays.

If there turns out to be quite a bit of lag time, then the move is a dumb idea.

And will there be a new Red Zone Channel on YouTube TV, like DirecTV had for years, but is now getting rid of since it no longer has the Sunday Ticket?

Seahawks fans who were able to get the NFL Network’s Red Zone Channel had it made — you got your favorite team on local TV each week, plus a channel following the rest of the games.

But for the rest of us, if you want to watch the 49ers each week, or the Broncos, or the Packers, or the Steelers, or the Cowboys, etc. … you had to shell out hundreds of dollars each year to buy the Ticket.

DirecTV could gouge you each year, because there was no competition — if you wanted to watch your out-of-market team, you had to pay up.

Maybe there will be an option where you could pay a little less and just watch your favorite team’s games, and watch a Red Zone channel, and also see the three or four games that KREM and KAYU airs?

You wouldn’t have access to every game on Sunday — just your game, and look-ins on most of the others, plus the ones on local TV.

But how many games can you watch at one time, anyway?

If we end up being gouged again by a new version of Sunday Ticket that is harder to navigate than the DirecTV version, without any new benefits, well …

We might want that beef stick back.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.