THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: No foolin': A look back to the winter sports season

Looking back, it was a little eerie covering high school basketball games in November.

No fans allowed.

Refs wearing masks.

You show up a few minutes into the varsity game to snap some photos, and the door to the gym is locked.

Fortunately, a security guy happened to be in the foyer at the time, so you could get in and do your job.

Otherwise ...

"Hey!" you scream, pounding on the doors. "Anybody home?"

Inside, the bleachers were empty, save for some leftover JV players and perhaps another stray or two. In the early season, it was easy for teams to find someone to film their games, because that would be their only way into the building.

The athletic director wore a mask as he did an interview with a TV reporter at halftime, and it actually looked completely normal — not like he had just knocked off the neighborhood bank.

Early on, the players and coaches were socially distanced on the bench, kinda like what you see on TV with college games or the pros — minus the angled sports drink holders.

(Hmmm ... might need one of those for the living room ... )

Being able to watch games on the NFHS Network from schools who were able to stream their games through their Pixallot cameras was gold. So were the other schools who showed their games on their Facebook pages or YouTube channels.

Kudos to those webcasts where they were able to work the score and the time remaining onto the screen.

As for the others ... since most games were announcerless, and unless the person running the camera occasionally panned up and showed the scoreboard, you had no idea what the score was.

That was frustrating. But at least it was something.

YOU HAD to feel for wrestling fans this winter.

Their matches started out fanless, too, and didn't get a whole lot better. Even by the time the state tournament rolled around, only two spectators per wrestler were allowed.

At least that was an improvement over the initial allocation of 1.5 spectators per wrestler, which had parents mulling over which half of their other half they were going to bring into the arena.

Or maybe bring a half-brother or half-sister.

But not much of an improvement. Seems like there could have been a better away, but at least the wrestlers got a real season — unlike a neighboring state.

BACK to hoops.

Eventually a few spectators were allowed in to high school games. First it was 10 per varsity game — which was fine unless you had more than 10 players on your varsity, then you had to rotate who couldn't have a parent there.

Later, the state upped it to 40 percent of a gym's capacity, which in most cases, let everyone in who wanted to come. And there was likely a certain percentage of fans who opted to stay home because of 1) staying away from people because of COVID-19; and 2) they could watch the game on their computer.

At the state tournaments, there were restrictions on the number of fans allowed per team. But with all the tourneys in the Boise area, that wasn't a problem for the North Idaho teams.

At some places, like Nampa High (1A Division II girls) and Rocky Mountain (4A boys), the fans sat upstairs and only the teams were downstairs.

They moved the start times up and allowed for more time between games — which didn't bother those of us on deadline, and/or trying to fight the Treasure Valley traffic driving from gym to gym.

Most importantly, just like last year, they got the winter sports season in, with crowned champions.

But, unlike last year at this time, it's so far, so good in the spring sports season.

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