THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: The sounds of a few months on the injured list

There’s an “OOOOOOOHHHH” sound that rises from the crowd at football games sometimes, usually after someone gets walloped by a crunching hit on the field. 

I remember that “OOOOOOOHHHH” sound from the last football game that I covered.

That’s because it happened to me. 

I remember being on the sidelines in mid-November at Coeur d’Alene High, taking pictures as the Vikings were taking on the Eagle Mustangs in a state 6A semifinal football game. 

It was sometime in the second quarter; I don't remember the score at the time.

But I remember an Eagle player running with the ball to my side of the field, slightly from my right, and a Coeur d’Alene defender closing in on him, slightly from my left. 

I focused my camera on the play and started firing away as they got closer. You’re always trying to hang in there as long as you can, to get “the shot.” 

The two players met near the sideline, just inbounds, and their momentum sent them sliding out of bounds toward me. 

And then ... 

“OOOOOOOHHHH.” 

I DON’T know if I got “the shot” on that play. 

I don’t know if I even want to know.  

All I know is the two players slid into the side of my left leg, and I went down in a heap. 

I don't remember what happened to my camera. My clipboard, which I was using to record each play, and keep my stats updated, went flying somewhere.

The players got up and jogged back to their respective huddles, like they would after any other play. 

Me? 

I looked at my leg, bent inward in a way it was not supposed to, and crumbled to the artificial turf. 

When I looked up, I saw four sets of eyes looking down at me, wide-eyed. 

It reminded me of those old boxing movies where one of the fighters gets knocked out, and the referee and others crowd around and look down at the guy, wondering if he is going to make it. 

Fortunately, I was on the Coeur d’Alene sideline, so I had lot of people attending to me. 

A couple of them helped me to my feet. 

“Can you put any weight on your left leg?” someone asked me.

Uh, that would be a “No.” 

Also fortunately, a cart belonging to the Coeur d’Alene High medical staff was parked nearby, and some folks helped me hobble over to sit in the cart. 

“Do you want me to call Jason, and get him out here?” asked Jon Adams, the Coeur d’Alene High boys basketball coach. 

That would be Jason Elliott, my cohort in the sports department at The Press.

It took me a moment to process why he would ask me this — since I was already here, covering the game.  

But eventually ... 

“Uh, yeah, that would be great. Thanks,” I said. 

Then a nice lady with the Coeur d’Alene High medical staff started to drive me down the track and out into the parking lot. 

“I’ve got your camera,” said Jason Buscema, who was there taking photos for Buscema Photography. 

“I’ve got your clipboard,” said someone else — it might have been Chris Costa, who was also there looking out for me. 

MEANWHILE, as the game continued, I sat in the cart in the parking lot, perhaps 50 yards away, with the nice lady from CHS while we waited for the ambulance to arrive. 

A nice gentleman named Dr. Chun, who just happened to be at the game, stopped by to comfort me. 

Victoria Beecher, the Coeur d’Alene High athletic director, stopped by to check on me. 

While we waited, we were close enough to hear the occasional cheering from the crowd, a couple of times hearing an elongated roar, and wondering who it was that just scored. 

After a few minutes, the ambulance showed up, and it was off to the ER at Kootenai Health, with Scott sticking some needle in my left arm during the ride there. 

At the hospital, after some X-rays and a CT scan, I was diagnosed with a broken tibia and broken fibula in my left leg — or as they refer to it in the profession, a “tib-fib.” 

A "tib-fib."

After a couple hours at the ER, they slipped a sleeve on my left leg, handed me some crutches, wheeled me out into the parking lot and sent me home — in the back seat of my sister Julie’s car. 

Jason Elliott and Glen Christmann, another co-worker, eventually fetched my car from the church parking lot at CHS and drove it to my house after work. 

SINCE THEN?  

Well, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I have been able to do most of what I normally do from my recliner in my living room — my left leg extended, naturally. 

The aforementioned Jason Elliott, who left his duties at the office and came out to CHS to finish covering the football game — brought the guts of my computer out to my house and hooked me up, so I could work on pages, and do pretty much everything I could do in the office. 

Meanwhile, many kind folks have reached out to check on me — obviously many from CHS who saw or heard what happened, but also from other schools, as well as the nice folks at Northwest Specialty Hospital. 

My sweet co-workers put together a care package — mostly a tasty one — and brought it out to me. 

My neighbor Mike has been most helpful, so I can get in and out of the house safely. 

I’ve watched WAY too much TV the past few months — I can tell you more about the 1986 baseball season than I can the recently completed one. 

But it has been an advantage in some ways. 

Thanks to the NFHS Network and HUDL Fan, I’ve been able to watch more high school basketball than I normally would, and cover games that way. 

And thanks to ESPN Plus, I’ve been able to add more detail to our Vandal stories, for one. 

And many thanks to all the local basketball coaches who emailed and/or texted me their box scores and comments after their games, so I could help Jason compile the prep roundups from home, while he did all the other grunt work in the office. 

I’M CURRENTLY going through the physical therapy portion of the recovery. 

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” my orthopedic guy keeps telling me. 

I won’t be able to dunk when I’m completely recovered — but then, I couldn’t dunk before the injury, either. 

Someday soon you’ll see me at a game again — maybe in a gym, but more likely at a baseball or softball field. 

And forgive me if I happen to be standing a little farther from the sideline! 

And when that time comes, hopefully the next time I hear the crowd go “OOOOOOOHHHH,” I hope I am not a part of it. 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.