A Grip on Sports: Don’t lose your grip on sanity about all the changes in the sports world, partly because you will have plenty of time later

A GRIP ON SPORTS • Hardly a week went by some 50 years ago without drama in our home. Usually it began with dad sitting in his chair, reading his newspaper. He would hit some story, read about a third of it and throw the paper down in disgust. “The world is going to hell in a handbasket,” he would yell before stomping out to the garage or the yard, muttering to himself. Me? I would immediately pick up the discarded Sports section and checked the box scores.

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• Yep, even then sports news rivaled what was coming out of D.C. in producing volcanic explosions. Whether it was rising baseball salaries – Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale holding out for $100,000, each? Why, I never heard such malarkey – or sports writers picking Alabama as national champions over USC despite the Trojans winning in Birmingham by 10 points, there was always some controversy or change in the sporting world that ticked off the old guard.

Few things new are really new in that regard. And never have been.

Which is why all the angst sweeping over college sports or the MLB or PGA or whatever gives us pause, sure, but, ultimately, shouldn’t derail our love of the games.

My father was sure rising salaries would destroy baseball. Maybe he was right. In the days when he was sharing his disgust with Mickey Mantle’s salary and what he saw was the ensuing rise in the price of his Dodger Dog, the sport was still hanging on to its spot atop the national pantheon. These days?

Let’s just say there are a lot reasons behind football’s ascension to the heavens, but the NFL’s hard salary cap is probably 23rd in line.

The inability of college football to come to agreement on a comprehensive playoff system – even though many were proposed for the big boys even 50 years ago – had a role in the evolution that is roiling it, and all collegiate sports, these days. But it’s ancillary, well behind the machinations of the NCAA, conferences, the courts, lawmakers, university administrators, coaches, boosters and, yes, even players.

Those two examples only scratch the surface of what used to raise dad’s blood pressure oh so many years ago – and do the same to more than a few folks his grandson’s age.

Paying players? Dad used to rail about Sam Gilbert and UCLA basketball. About USC football players given big bucks to play extras in Hollywood TV shows.

Stacking rosters? After a friend’s son fell for John Robinson’s golden recruiting pitch and signed with USC, despite dad’s advice, he railed about how he got lost on the bench, never saw the field and was the “11th-string punter.”

Free agency. Rule changes. Dumb conferences. TV schedules. All were in play then too.

So when you log onto this website tomorrow or next week or next month and read something about sports that raises your dander, please don’t throw you iPad across the room. Not only will it probably break – another way legacy news still wins – but you should remember such news has happened before. And will happen again.

• If Gonzaga’s men do what they usually do and rally down the stretch to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament, there probably will be another reason for you to mutter some expletive over a sports section story. That is, if the bracketologists are correct.

As Jim Meehan touches on in an S-R story today (and I have been railing about – thanks for the temper pops – for weeks), the Zags’ spot in the NCAA-created NET rankings have no correlation to their expected seed.

GU is 10th in the NET this cloudy and cold Tuesday. But everyone from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi to The Athletic’s Joe Rexrode has them as a middle-rung seed. Such a NET number should correspond to a three seed, right? Not an eight or nine.

Rail all you want, but no one outside the sound of your voice is going to care much. Or understand who is really at fault.

As with most things, blame the NCAA’s ineptitude. Why commission, use and promote a ranking system to help your committee evaluate teams’ resumes if it is so flawed? Or, on the flip side, if you have faith in it, why is the committee allowed to ignore it?

Maybe the answers are simple. To give us all something more to scream about.

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WSU: We linked an Athletic story yesterday graded all of college football’s FBS coaching hires around the country. We can link today any mention that touches on locally connected coaches, including the Cougars and the Vandals. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, we also linked this story Monday from Jon Wilner about the conference’s expansion. It runs in the S-R today. … John Canzano has his Monday mailbag. … Washington’s season isn’t good. So men’s coach Danny Sprinkle made it pretty clear yesterday they will not waste a season’s worth of eligibility on one player who recently became available. … How good is Oregon’s resume? A strong finish should make it strong enough for an at-large bid, something that might not have been true a week ago. … Mick Cronin is about to win his 500th game. And seems locked in with UCLA. We will see. … Speaking of another demonstrative coach, Arizona State’s Bobby Hurley seems to be on the hot seat. … Arizona had a key road game last night, coming off back-to-back losses and facing Baylor in Waco. The Wildcats won 74-67. … San Diego State has a giant in the middle at times. … Colorado State matches up with Nevada tonight. … Once again, Utah State needs to bounce back after a loss to New Mexico. … The Oregon State women are aiming to finish in the West Coast Conference’s top four and earn another day off. … The A.P. women’s poll reflects only to a degree USC’s recent win over the former top-ranked Bruins. The Trojans are four and UCLA three. … In football news, Washington has attracted home a player it once shunned. … Oregon State continues to fill holes within its coaching staff. … The personnel on Colorado’s defense will be different next season. But the standards will remain the same. … How many wins could Arizona State earn next season? … Arizona has added another assistant coach.

Gonzaga: Meehan’s thoughts on the NET rankings, as well as the Zags’ analytical and poll numbers are covered in this in-depth piece. Once again, Arizona (19) is the only Western school ranked in the A.P. men’s Top 25. … Awards? Yes, the men finally have won one of the West Coast Conference weekly honors. Ryan Nembhard, after breaking the conference single-season assists record. Theo Lawson has that story. … Back to Jim. And his weekly podcast with TV analyst Richard Fox. You can listen here. … Hey, the Bulldogs are not moving in Wilner’s Best of the West rankings for the men. They are sixth again.   

EWU: One thing about college sports. One year’s little-used reserve can become next’s year key player. That’s what has happened with Eastern’s Ella Gallatin. Dan Thompson delves into the emergence of the Eagles’ veteran leader. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, the Montana men have won eight consecutive games, in part thanks to the improved play of Kai Johnson. … Northern Colorado surrendered the top spot to the Griz after two losses in four games.

Preps: There was playoff basketball last night. We even saw a few minutes of one game. Dave Nichols saw a lot more than that and has this coverage of the Rogers’ boys win as well as coverage of the other games.

Chiefs: Dave also kept tabs on the Chiefs, who rallied to win a day game in Canada yesterday, topping Kamloops 4-2.

Boxing: Spokane Boxing Gym’s first national champion? That would be 9-year-old Levy Scheidt, who recently won the 2025 National Silver Gloves boxing championship for her age group in Missouri. Steve Christilaw has her story.

Seahawks: What type of cap moves will Seattle have to make? Will there be trades or cuts coming? … Marshawn Lynch. Actor. Funny and fun.

Kraken: The 4 Nations Face-off has the final it wanted. Canada vs. the United States. In Boston. Thursday night.

Mariners: We linked this Gabe Speier story from the Times yesterday. It is on the S-R site today. … What grade would you give the M’s offseason? The Athletic gives the franchise a D. It could have been worse, right? The phrase “strangely passive offseason” was used. … Luis Castillo addressed all the buzz around him this offseason. If he had been traded, I wonder what the offseason grade would have been.

Sounders: Who is Seattle’s most underrated player? That’s an easy question. Stefan Frei.

Sonics: Tim Booth delves into what was said about NBA expansion plans at the recent All-Star weekend in San Francisco.

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• Why is it this time of year, when you check the 10-day forecast, it always seems to be promising warmer weather just down the road. You drive and drive and never seem to get any closer to the mirage of 50-degree highs. Maybe this time. Next week looks great! Again. Until later …