Soon enough

A few weeks ago we needed to make a trip to Spokane and on the way home we decided to get away from the freeway traffic and go through Cheney. We decided to go to a store and browse around for a bit. I noticed a young man wearing a red Eastern Washington athletics sweatshirt. The young man looked like he spent a fair amount of time in the weight room.

As he meandered through the store I saw him picking out some items to purchase. He was close enough so I walked over and asked him if he played football for the Eagles. He smiled and said that he did. I asked his name and what position he played. I told him I was a season ticket holder and was looking forward to getting back to watching the games live. He said he was looking forward to it as well.

He told me that when they let family members come to the games in the spring it helped because the team could hear fans. I told him that I knew this Covid thing had a detrimental effect on the team but as fans we weren’t dealing with it very well either. He smiled and said, “I can’t wait to play in front of the Eastern fans. It’s going to be a lot of fun!”

I asked him if the Eagles lost many players from last year’s playoff team and he said that most everyone is coming back including Eric Barriere, EWU’s QB who was a finalist for the Walter Payton award for the FCS player of the year. As we were getting checked out I wished the young man good luck in the upcoming season and that I was looking forward to watching him play. He thanked me and left the store.

This encounter was by chance and I’m glad that I took the time to meet this young man. It instilled in me that EWU is recruiting young men that are team players and appreciative of the fans that come to Cheney to root for the Eagles.

In this past year it has been a real problem trying to figure out if there was going to be sports seasons and if so when. In Ritzville we did summer camps in the fall and because of early cold weather saw those shut down.

We played football in late winter and basketball in June. There were no state tournaments and with shortened spring seasons after no spring sports a year ago many athletes that would have loved to play on in college weren’t able to showcase their talent but for a few weeks in April and May. Kids that worked so hard to win a state championship in track didn’t get a chance even though the events take place outside where most all young people would have been safe from the dreaded virus.

In the last year it has been difficult to get excited about watching pro or college sports when the fans were made of cardboard and the noise piped in over the loudspeakers. Baseball and auto racing have seen large crowds come back this year and it is more fun to watch a televised event with naturally rowdy fans.

Come September we’ll be able to go back to college campuses to watch our favorite team or alma mater play some football and I think I’ve saved up some energy to yell and distribute high fives to the fans near me.

I’m certainly glad I took the time to meet one of the young Eagle linebackers a couple of weeks ago. I’m excited to watch his progress for the next four years.

Soon enough we’ll also get to watch the local high school and middle school team play in September. Make sure you get in shape to bring your ‘A’ game as a fan.