If I’m not covering a game for the Post Register, I’m in the office taking calls from area coaches (my work week spans from Tuesday-Saturday). Ideally, every coach whose team plays that day calls in the score, provides stats and gives us a couple of quotes. Whoever takes the call then writes up a 100ish-word recap.

These recaps, as you can imagine, are usually bare-bones and formulaic. But one I wrote a few of months ago served as a mini-feature.

I covered a Rigby High School boys soccer game in late September and found out Rigby’s coach, Bart Mower, was in Salt Lake City. He traveled to a hospital there with his wife, who was getting a brain tumor surgically removed.

Mower called in his team’s score the following week. It was his first game since his wife’s surgery. After getting the details of the game, I asked Mower about his wife. As you’ll see in the story below, he was open with me. Here’s the link to that recap.

A fews days later, I was in the office and took another call from Mower. He gave me the usual details from the game and talked about his team’s performance. But at the end of the call, he thanked me for writing the recap about his wife. He said he received a lot of feedback and support.

Out of all the stories I’ve written for the Register so far, this stuck with me the most (and I’ve written other stories about athletes or coaches who have gone through life hardships). There are a couple of reasons for that: 1) Hearing about the impact of your story from a subject firsthand — especially an emotional story like this — always makes a mark; 2) the impact came from a short recap in a soccer roundup. Ninety-nine percent of the time, those don’t elicit emotional responses. I would’ve loved to do a bigger feature on Mower, and even though I was busy at the time, I probably could’ve gotten something bigger published. But part of me thought, maybe this short recap was more than enough. The fact that a story so basic could create such an impact, however big it truly was, always reminds me about the value of this profession.

At Pocatello, the Rigby High School boys soccer team prevailed 3-0 in coach Bart Mower’s first game since his wife’s surgery last week.

Mower accompanied his wife, Chantel, to Salt Lake City during the middle of last week while she underwent surgery for a brain tumor. The surgery was successful, but she has felt nauseous in the days since and is deaf in her left ear because of the surgery.

“This has been the toughest week of my life,” Mower said.

Mower didn’t know if his team played extra hard for him Tuesday, but he believes his return played a factor. His players certainly made him proud.

“The best I’ve seen them play all season,” Mower said. “It was the way soccer is meant to be.”

Kyle Bichsel and Carlos Murillo each scored a goal in the first half, and Dexter Johnston completed the scoring midway through the second half. On Murillo’s goal, Mower said the ball went from goalkeeper to Murillo without one Pocatello player touching the ball.

Rigby (3-8-2, 2-3-1) hosts Preston Thursday.