THE FRONT ROW with JASON ELLIOTT: Rivals, both young and a little older

You know you’re getting older when the kids you wrote about in high school start having kids, and you get to the point when you are telling their kids' stories now.

Crazy, right?

But that kind of comes with the territory when you start in a line of business in 2001 and are still going strong all those years later.

WHILE I’LL likely never get to the point where I can fully retire, I can appreciate those that eventually do.

People like Randy Rogers, the longtime women’s basketball coach at the College of Southern Idaho, who called it a career earlier this week after leading the Golden Eagles of Twin Falls to the NJCAA Tournament once again.

There’s more than a few memories that I’ve had in chatting with him, sometimes at a state tournament in Nampa as he used that time to scout a few recruits, or after games at Christianson Gymnasium in Coeur d’Alene after another battle with North Idaho College.

And granted, opposing coaches aren’t always used to having to chat with the media, and in NIC’s previous stint in the conference, oftentimes CSI brought a radio broadcaster along, so I had to wait my turn.

But Rogers answered my questions, sometimes as silly as the next about each game.

Sometimes — and especially in those first couple of years I was at the Coeur d’Alene Press when the Cardinals were a machine under Chris and Carey Carlson — the answers weren’t going to be found some 10 minutes after the game.

When NIC returned to the conference for the 2023-24 season, I’ll never forget what Rogers said to me right before we started our postgame chat.

“I thought I’d retire before I had to see your face again,” he said with a laugh. 

Earlier this year, after CSI knocked off NIC in its conference opener on Jan. 3 in Coeur d’Alene, I’d suggested that maybe the Cardinals and Golden Eagles consider playing one of their three conference games at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, before the start of the state girls basketball tournament.

My thought is that it could have been a great recruiting tool for both programs.

Thinking about Rogers now, I’d quit too.

Sure, he was a rival coach.

But he just had a way of bringing out the best in everyone on the court, regardless of what team was playing.

THERE’S NOTHING better than a good rivalry in sports.

That was always clear in games between NIC and CSI, even miles away in Worley last Friday as the teams played a pair of softball games at the Marimn Health Coeur Center fields due to wet conditions at NIC's home field.

The fans showed up, even 27 miles away from Memorial Field in Coeur d’Alene.

A little closer to home, it’s been well over 20 years since bitter Silver Valley rivals Wallace and Kellogg have played a football game against each other.

Sure, they haven’t been in the same league in just as long, with Wallace playing 8-man football and Kellogg playing in the 3A Central Idaho League.

That being said, both teams have roughly the same amount of players on their teams, so it seems closer to happening again.

Hopefully sooner than later.

We’re not getting any younger.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for The Press. He can be reached by telephone at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1206 or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on ‘X’, formerly Twitter @JECdAPress.