Tiger Woods shocked the world last Spring.
Woods won the 2019 Masters Tournament on April 14th, earning him his fifth green jacket and fifteenth major. It was not only a special moment for sports fans across the world, but it was a special moment period. It didn’t matter what the color of your skin was or your ethnicity. Nor did it matter what background you came from.
Everyone was pulling for Tiger.
Golf fans, casual sports fans, analysts, and celebrities were either tweeting their support for him or posting Instagram photos of him in his infamous Sunday red shirt.
This win was different from the others though.
Over the course of his career, the world had a front-row seat to Woods’ rise to stardom.
In that very same seat, we all witnessed his fall from grace, both personally and professionally, and his “return to glory”, a moment perfectly described by broadcaster Jim Nantz.
Over the next 12-24 hours, Woods and his historic victory were at the forefront of the conversation on television and radio talk shows across the country. For a person who may not care about sports, one may wonder what the big deal about his victory was. While many had their opinion on his win, FS1’s Colin Cowherd may have had the perfect take. Cowherd spoke about how the country loves comeback stories and the fact that many across the world saw Woods deal with the everyday life problems that “normal” people do such as divorce, substance abuse, and family issues.
With all that he spoke about on the victory in those near six minutes, the most profound thing was the closing.
“Don’t ever let anybody marginalize sports in your family to you”, said Cowherd. “Sports shapes us, it heals us, it empowers us, it connects us. It does what governments often promises but doesn’t deliver.”
Looking back at that moment that was almost a year ago, Cowherd was on the money. Sports does shape us, heal us, empower us, and connect us. However, there is one thing that Cowherd forgot to mention that sports also accomplishes.
Sports help us take our minds off of things.
It doesn’t matter if it distancing yourself from mudslinging politics between Democrats and Republicans. It also doesn’t matter whether you have trouble in your personal or professional life. Sports have always been a tool or resource to escape from “the real world” for a few hours. An example of that is the tragedies of the 9/11 terror attacks and how football gave the country moments of relief during a time of fear and confusion.
Sports have always been there during these times.
Now, it isn’t.
Over the last several months, the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak has taken the world by storm. From China to Italy to now the United States, the virus has had profound impacts on the world socially and economically.
It was until the diagnosis of Rudy Gobert that everyone began to pay attention.
Gobert, who is the starting center of the NBA’s Utah Jazz tested positive for COVID-19 last Wednesday. Earlier that day, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and the league’s Board of Governors (team owners) had continuous discussions throughout the day on implementation of precautions that would allow the NBA season to continue. Their goal was to find a way to continue the season without putting players, staff, or fans at risk of contracting the virus. Following Gobert’s positive diagnosis, Silver made the executive decision to suspend the NBA season indefinitely.
After the NBA suspended its season, domino after domino began to fall.
The NCAA canceled the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments along with all of their spring sports. Following behind them was the cancellation of the 2020 Masters Tournament. After that was the MLB Spring League games and public events for the upcoming NFL Draft. The NHL also made the decision to postpone its’ upcoming season due to the outbreak. Sport by sport, league by league, entity by entity, they all began to disappear for the foreseeable future.
There is an old saying that most people may have heard of and it goes like “you don’t know how good you have it until it is gone.”
That phrase describes a lot of Americans.
Heck, the phrase describes a lot of people all over the world who are yearning for this virus to flatten and anticipating the return of sports on all levels. The conversation of sports was there for our water cooler talks in the workplace. It was there when sitting in the barbershop, going back and forth about who’s the “GOAT”. It was also even there for our social media group discussions to voice our dissatisfaction.
People often complained about sports.
There were complaints about how the rules were changing by the second, stripping competition like professional football of its essence. There were also complaints of the “buddy-buddy” ball with NBA athletes forming “super teams”, allegedly weakening the competition pool. More recently, there were complaints about the purity of MLB baseball and the recent scandal involving the Houston Astros, a scandal that one could argue deserves the vitriol it is receiving.
So, with all of this being said, there is one question that we as a society must ask. It a question one should ask, whether they are sports fans or not.
Did we as a society take sports for granted?
The answer to that question is honestly subjective. People will only answer it from their perspective and the importance of it in their lives. Some will only look at the entertainment aspect of it, completing ignoring the economic ramifications.
Many arena and stadium workers along with hourly employees of professional sports organizations are suffering the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak as well.
No games mean no work. If there is no work, there is no income, which is something else many took for granted.
For some, working in the arena was an additional source of income.
For others, it was their main source of income; a fact that Mark Cuban did not ignore.
Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks immediately got in front of the situation to provide comfort to his employees. After the NBA announced the decision to suspend the season, an unprovoked Cuban said that his organization would implement a program to financially assist their hourly team and arena workers during the downtime. In addition to Cuban, reigning NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Blake Griffin of the Detroit Pistons each pledged $100,000 apiece to support team/arena workers, while New Orleans Pelicans rookie Zion Williamson also pledged to donate an undisclosed amount.
Think about that for one second.
Don’t only think about the fact that multi-millionaire athletes have stepped up to the forefront to assist arena workers. Think about some of the billionaire team owners who have yet to make a move as such. Think about the fact that a player on a rookie contract is willing to make the same sacrifice as well. It raises an additional question of if society takes professional athletes for granted as well.
While there is no timetable on when the spread of the COVID-19 virus will subside to a safe point, one thing for sure is that society will never be the same again. So when sports on all levels does indeed return, instead of jumping right back into debates over teams, who’s the best, etc., take a moment to just appreciate being able to watch LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard battle each or being able to attend your child’s high school sports competition, whatever sport it may be.
The COVID-19 outbreak is another painful yet scary reminder.
That’s the fact anything can come and go in the blink of an eye. It just, unfortunately, took removing sports from society to get the message; a message that contains a lesson we should not take for granted.
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