A Grip on Sports: On this holiday it is right and proper to remember the past, and not just the nation’s but some personal past as well

A GRIP ON SPORTS • When we were young, there was Lincoln’s Birthday. And Washington’s Birthday. And no such thing as Presidents Day. Holidays were tougher then. Just like the walk to-and-from school, that had to be done every day. Uphill. Coming and going. Plus snowy. Without the benefit of shoes.

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• Ok, none of that is true. And we’re not even sure if today is a holiday for anyone gainfully employed these days, outside of the public sector. You lose track of such things when you no longer have to actually get dressed, get in a car and drive to work. Lose track of a lot of things, including the day once in a while.

But we’re sure today is a Monday in late February. Why? Mainly because the sports news is so sparse.

We’re not saying it isn’t important. But meager? Sure.

Darn you NFL. Why a 17-game season? Why not 44 or 49 or something? We would be all-in watching the 25-24 Seahawks miss a playoff spot due to some wacky tiebreaker. At least our late February Sundays would hold the promise of 23 consecutive beer commercials. As the big guy upstairs intended.

Instead we watched … well, not the NBA All-Star game – or was it a tournament? Either way, we weren’t that bored.

We injected our sports fix with a little record-setting women’s college hoops – did you know, of the eight longest home winning streaks in the sport’s NCAA Division I history, Connecticut either holds them (three) or stopped them (five, including South Carolina’s 71-game one that crashed down yesterday, 87-58)? – and a lot of warm-weather golf.

Oh, we did watch a few minutes of NASCAR. The Daytona 500 is the sport’s signature event, so no well-rounded sports fan should skip it entirely. Rain? It shouldn’t be allowed. Is there any way the France family or State Farm or someone could build a roof on the Daytona track for the once-yearly event? It would be $40 billion well spent.

At least there is some hockey on today. The 4 Nations Face-Off. A perfect Presidents Day accompaniment. After all, Teddy Roosevelt probably played the game at Harvard in the yard this time of year. If he wasn’t shooting a couple ducks in down by the Charles River.

• What else is there to share today? A bunch of stuff, including Greg Lee’s S-R story on why Saturday’s cancer awareness game was so important for Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier and her program.

It was important in our house as well, as the women we are related to be marriage is a cancer survivor, something everyone under this roof cherish every day.

I’ll never forget that day in July so long ago, when she called me as I was covering the Pac-10 football media days in Los Angeles. The tests had just come back. She had breast cancer. Heck, she hadn’t even let me know she was going in for tests, after becoming concerned by a lesion that just wouldn’t heal. She didn’t want me worrying if it was nothing – so she did all the worrying herself. Just like she did everything for our family in those days. And still does.

She teared up during some of the cancer-focused parts of Saturday’s game, from the videos to the testimonies to whatever. And shared what she remembered of her experience with the addled-brained guy sitting to her right.

The disease is a, well, I won’t use a bad word here but I want to.

It’s touched just about everyone I know, either their bodies or the bodies of someone they love. It kills. It causes suffering, anguish and about 37 different types of pain. Anyone who has dealt with it is different in some way.

It also bands together those who survive, as illustrated by the folks who lined up to pick up the survivor T-shirts Fortier made sure were available at halftime.

It’s also not a coincidence a group of Kim’s friends who drive their longtime life mentor and co-worker to her cancer treatments every month are almost all survivors themselves. And it’s no coincidence they all feel blessed to have the opportunity.

They are, as all survivors are, the living embodiment of love. Of life. Of their family. Of everything they could have lost. And so many have.

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WSU: If you are interested in how the nation is looking at the Cougars’ football coaching hire, just know so were we. And, luckily, we found a story that grades it (as well as every hire). … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future Pac-12 and the nation), Jon Wilner has another story in the Mercury News about the Pac-12 and expansion. … The A.P. basketball rankings are revealed each Monday just after we post this column. Just what will happen this week? We can speculate. Or pass along other’s speculation. We chose the latter. … Oregon’s NCAA hopes probably would have trouble surviving a bad home loss. So the Duck men made sure that didn’t happen last night against Rutgers. … Oregon State has to discover how to win on the road, considering their home schedule is over. … Another key Big 12 road game awaits Arizona tonight. The Wildcats are at Baylor. … The Mountain West men’s regular season title is about wrapped up. And it won’t be a future Pac-12 school. New Mexico found a way to get past Utah State in the Pit last night and build a two-game (plus tiebreaker) lead. … San Diego State won’t win it either but they did win another big game Saturday. … Colorado State has been on a roll. … The USC and UCLA women played each other over the weekend. Big game. Big hangovers. Did their next opponents take advantage? Well, Washington almost did, holding JuJu Watkins in check, leading by double digits and taking the sixth-ranked Trojans to the wire in a loss in Seattle. … No. 22 Michigan State couldn’t get past top-ranked UCLA either, even though the Bruins were without star Lauren Betts. … Oregon picked up a big win at Minnesota. … Finally, the women’s first bracket reveal came Sunday. Connecticut’s win might have made it obsolete already. … In football news, Oregon State filled another of its coaching staff vacancies.

Gonzaga: We mentioned Greg’s story above. We linked it there. And we link it again. … OK, the question we posed about a month ago may just have its answer. Here’s what we wrote on Jan. 21 about the men’s team: “Of course, there are other traditions this team is trying to keep alive. The 27 consecutive years the Zags have played in the WCC Tournament title game. The string of NCAA appearances dating back to 1999. The run of nine Sweet Sixteen appearances. All of it in danger if this group doesn’t figure out how to get stops. … While checking the streaks in the paragraph above – they are wild enough to double check – I fell into a Web rabbit hole. At the bottom of it was Marquise Carter and the 2010-11 Zag team. It was a season that had slipped my mind. Not just because it was so long ago, but because it was, for the most part, forgettable. Other than Carter’s performance down the stretch and Jimmer Fredette’s in the NCAA tournament. Could there be a Marquise Carter on this year’s roster?” It turns out there just might be – in his own way. Jim Meehan has a story today on Emmanuel Innocenti, a little-used reserve until, well, since around Jan. 21. In the seven games since he’s been given more playing time, Gonzaga is 6-1.

EWU: As the NFL offseason starts to really roll, Cooper Kupp’s future, and future earnings, are the subject of intense speculation.

Preps: Next up on Washington’s high school sports radar? The State wrestling tournaments in Tacoma. We can pass along local qualifiers in all levels for the boys and girls.

NASCAR: We mentioned the Daytona 500 above as well. Yes, it rained. Just after the start. And yes, by the time it resumed, the most-prominent celebrity to attend had already left.

Mariners: Another key relief pitcher enters spring training trying to get his throwing arm back to normal. … John Canzano’s Sunday column was a fun one, mainly because it covered a minor league baseball teammate of his father’s who, seemingly, had a distant relative that played baseball with our dad – and maybe yours.

Kraken: We linked this story about possible trades before when it ran in the Times, but we link it again. … The 4 Nations Face-Off finishes in Boston, starting tonight with the final qualifying games. If either Canada or Finland win in regulation, the winner advances. Any other result and Sweden could steal the final spot across from the U.S. with a regulation win. We about 99.9% sure ESPN, which will broadcast Thursday final, want Canada to win after the mammoth ratings their first matchup attracted.

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• The 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live has resulted in hours and hours of classic video available on either social media or some other digital platform. It has also brought back memories of those subversive early days, when it was fresh, lively and just rebellious enough to tick our parents off – if they even knew it existed. The anniversary has allowed us to find some really funny reminiscences, including a piece on the best hosts. Until later …