Without belaboring an obvious point, this is getting old. And I mean all of it. Being stuck inside, working from the kitchen table, trying to figure out how long you can go between trips to the grocery store, trying to plan your kids summer without any camps, frantic calls with relatives feeling the same way, all of it. And that’s without, thank God, having to deal personally with the worst of this crisis, namely severe illness and death or even true economic distress. But nonetheless, I think we’re all wearing thin.
It’s safe to say that we’re all hoping, praying for some kind of return to normal, even just a little bit. Like getting your mail without having to take a shower. Or, how about being able to watch a basketball game? Or a soccer match? Or even taking your kids to a baseball tournament. These are just some of the things that have, or soon will be available as the US considers the prospect of a restart. For example, Major League Baseball is talking about a shortened season that might take place in Arizona, or not in Arizona, and might or might not have fans. NASCAR is planning its first Coronavirus era race this weekend, with lots of masks and helmets but no fans. The NBA is getting closer and closer to an announcement about finishing their season, which might happen in Disney World. And there was even a travel youth baseball tournament held this past weekend in Missouri that brought some 40 teams together. Which, by the way, sounded like a horrible idea.
These are some of the movements towards bringing sports back into our daily lives as part of a resumption of what we used to know before early March. There’s a whole lot more that is yet to be determined, including most notably the entire slate of college sports set for the fall, big-time college football front and center of that debate, one that was clouded just a bit by the entire Cal State University system announcing there won’t be students on campus all fall. That said, the University of Arkansas has already announced they’d start football conditioning drills on July 15. So there’s that.
This list of ambiguity could go on forever, including all us parents who are trying to figure out if our kids are playing club sports this fall. To be clear, this is a process that’s typically ridiculous in the best of times, where parents jockey their kids for a high-priced spot on what they perceive to be the best team. Right now, that all feels somewhat quaint when I’m trying to figure out if I’m a horrible parent by letting my kids do what they really want to do each Sunday afternoon.
Each of the aforementioned decisions will be made through a confluence of medical and economic pressure points. And to be clear, even the well intentioned and planned may fail. German professional soccer has already had trouble in its upcoming return when 10 players tested positive before teams even took to the pitch. All of which could make for an interesting game day adjustment when you lose half your team to a positive test.
So one way or another, sports are going to give it a go, often long before other institutions – like say schools – take a similar leap. Will this work? I suppose the best answer is we’ll find out. Not exactly hard science.
I’m not against these kinds of efforts, at least for the pros, if they’re well planned and stop if it goes south. What I am concerned about is how this is perceived by the public. Right now, it seems we’ve found a way to politicize the virus. And by we, I mean Donald Trump. Which means we have two different narratives about how we should confront this crisis – one largely by science, and the other by gut – and I’m being kind here. Which means the restart of sports, and even the games themselves, might find themselves firmly caught in the web of America’s endless culture war, where even institutions meant to bring us together seem to only more firmly tear us apart. To be clear, that is the fault of this President and his obscene band of misfits and followers. Because only a few short years ago, sport was nearly universally seen as a unifying force in times of national crisis. How times have changed. Which means that watching a football game or youth sports may no longer be a time where we can all forget our political differences. It might just make them worse.
And that, like everything right now, will get really, really old.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
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