THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: A good, bad and ugly week in sports

There’s always a good, bad and ugly side of sports.
Take Gonzaga’s game against Texas on Wednesday for example.
It’s good that it’s only November, because no matter how bad that looked, it could have been uglier.
Keep in mind. It’s only November and there’s still a lot that can happen — good or bad — for the program in the next few months.
CHANCES ARE it might be hard to find a uglier display of football by the Seattle Seahawks than the first half last Sunday in Munich.
Seattle couldn’t keep its traction on the field, slipping and sliding all over the place.
That led to missed tackles, almost no running game whatsoever and what turned out to be a loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Sure, both teams had to play on some players called terrible field conditions.
The bad thing — at least for Seattle fans — was that while Tampa Bay adapted for the most part to the conditions, Seattle didn’t until too late.
Seattle did a lot of good things in the second half, even what you’d call things to build on, with forcing turnovers and giving themselves a chance to win late in the game.
Keep in mind that many didn’t think Seattle was going to be good, at all, this season.
The good thing for them is that entering a bye week, the Seahawks are 6-4 and still lead — somehow — the NFC West as neither the L.A. Rams or Arizona have been as good as expected either.
As a fan, it’s tough to temper whatever expectations you might have, especially with such an unexpected start to the season.
There’s still a lot of time left in the season.
Time to either get on a roll and make something of the strong start.
Or completely let things go off the rails the other direction.
A LOT of athletes truly believe that once they leave high school, the grass will be greener a little further away from home, and that could be true in some cases.
But for the North Idaho College volleyball team, they’ve had quite a bit of success in keeping the good kids a little closer to home.
“I wanted to go to NIC when I started my recruitment,” said NIC sophomore Abigail Neff, who helped the Lakeland High girls to a state 4A title in 2020. “But they didn’t come in contact with me until the spring of my senior year. It was crunch time for me and I needed to commit. (NIC coach) Kelsey (Stanley) called, and I knew after coming here for a visit it was going to be a perfect fit. I really needed to go somewhere, and wanted to go to NIC, so I was really happy that it happened.”
Thanks to winning its region, NIC extended its home season by two matches last weekend.
“It was nice to be at home, sleep in our own beds, be with our parents and go home afterward,” said Kayla Freed, a sophomore from Lake City High. “It was nice to have them here, with all of our home fans and friends. It was nice to be able to play here again.”
ALL COACHES try to do the right thing for their players in any given situation.
Then again, when St. Maries High football and baseball coach Craig Tefft saw a shortage, he stepped in and thought of those around the area.
As some coaches might enjoy a little downtime between seasons, and it’s a full-time job enough coaching football, but then there’s Tefft, spending his winter months as a basketball official for District 1 games in recent years.
Just giving back. Not because he had to, but wanted to get involved.
Earlier this week it was announced on social media that Tefft, 46, is battling cancer.
A “Lumberjack Strong” fund has been established at KNRH Printing and Designs, with T-shirts, sweatshirts and wrist bands for sale, with proceeds going to help with medical bills.
Orders can be placed by emailing knrhprinting@gmail.com.
There’s a lot of good in that community.
And Tefft is one of the great ones.
Jason Elliott is a sports writer for The Press. He can be reached by telephone at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JECdAPress.