Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
Like everyone else in the world, I’m sick and tired of COVID affecting every little thing but mainly sports.
Sports, like movies and any entertainment venue should be about escaping the day’s problems. We are entitled to have a few hours to not focus on or think about that and cheer for our team whether they wear pinstripes, are donned in Red and Blue, maroon or even have that fancy script A on their hats.
Cardboard fan cutouts and sanitized arenas and neutral sites are now what’s required. I even saw a link on Rebel play by play voice David Kellum’s Twitter page where Rebel fans could record their own cheer to be played back through the stadium sound system. The cheers I thought of initially shouldn’t be repeated or said out loud for that matter, so I didn’t record one. I did think about getting one of those $55 cardboard cutouts but then I’d have to go take a suitable photo and well, that idea didn’t get out of the gate either.
I can’t imagine what it’s like playing sports on any level in this COVID world. I perform Public Address duties and see the high school level but just walking up to the press box with a mask on depletes my oxygen levels. But maybe that says more about my physical shape than the actual mask. But I digress.
Athletes and coaches have to bend over backwards to try and get discipline and repetition and fundamentals and routines going. Football and the postal service used to be in lock step as they both adhered to the unofficial post office motto:
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
Well, that’s not true anymore. Football schedules are tossed about like winds from the latest hurricanes and the mail gets to my house when it dang well pleases and not a day sooner. Take for instance the Mississippi Delta Community College Trojan football team. First, the national association that has too many letters that I usually get out of order, decides to cancel the season. Then the state association that governs the Magnolia State teams says, “wait, a minute, hold my mask and my beer, we’re playing.”
Hallelujah, a six-game season is put in place for an October start then the mighty Trojans are on the bus and headed to their first game when lo and behold the state association guy calls and says, hold on, too many boys are in quarantine at Northwest CC, so go back home.
They did and hit the practice field some more and now that game is pushed to the end of the schedule.
Last week they finally get a game in but had to play it in the middle of the day on Friday due to Hurricane Delta.
The Trojans hit on all cylinders early but couldn’t keep that going and ended up losing. Now, this week’s game with Holmes is postponed due to COVID stuff. Coach Jimmy, Coach Randall and Coach Wooky must be shaking their heads in heaven looking down on this COVID mess and hurricane intrusions to the daily regimen.
I know there’s not a clear-cut answer other than finding a way to defeat the virus.
But coaches not only coach on the field but use this mess to teach their players how to deal with adversity when their playing days are over. I think that’s a Master’s level class that coaches are engaging in daily with their athletes.
“You’re always going to go through not only on the field but in life – adversity. And how you handle adversity dictates and affects the rest of your life and the game that you’re playing,” MDCC Head Football Coach Jeff Tatum said.
Hopefully, they all pass and help make the world a better place, post-COVID.
Till next week!...
