Vicarious Living

The Ivy League is cancelling its sports programs for the fall due to the ongoing pandemic. Stanford has ended 11 varsity sports altogether, including wrestling. Ohio State has suspended football practice after reporting Covid-19 infections.

And according to the AP,  51 Division I teams, 56 Division II teams and 52 Division III teams have been dropped by four-year colleges because of the pandemic. Further updates will no doubt be coming soon, including from the NCAA, which covers "nearly half a million college athletes [on] 19,886 teams." As the NCAA goes, so goes college sports.

Thanks to the health crisis, sports have been largely missing from our lives and will continue to be so. The European futbol leagues have been somewhat of an exception, as teams have been closing out their seasons playing before stadiums filled with holograms of fans and the soundtracks of previous games.

But overall no one is keeping sports fans entertained, and a whole lot of us are going slowly crazy as a result. It may be vicarious living but what better way to pass time when you have to shelter in place?

For non-sports-fans, allow me to explain: For us, a game is much more than a game. It starts with the anticipation, as we focus on the upcoming matchup.

There can't be many emotional states more powerful than anticipation.

The actual event is captured by cameras from every angle, and the replays are easily as important to the fan as the real time play. Each game creates its own narrative; one team or player is up, another is down.

There are routs, there are comebacks, there are magnificent performances and there are flops. Sort of like life.

The games generate copious statistics, which can be compared to other games, other eras, other memories of glory. Someone somewhere is always going for a record of some kind.

After the seasons conclude, there are repercussions in the form of ratings, playoffs, championship trophies, contracts, inductions into halls of fame, and the like.

For serious sports fans, there is normally a surfeit of options when it comes to which games to watch. We often plan out our entire schedules around certain sporting events, and when we can't see them in real time, we tape them for later viewing.

Finally, there is the connection with fellow fans. That is probably the most important part right now. We're sitting around isolated from each other, cut off from the vehicle that generates many of our favorite communications. We are starving.

It's hard to send a message about something that didn't happen. Thus the silence like a cancer grows, and not just at Wednesday 3 a.m.

There are so many victims directly of Covid-19, with over 3 million infected and 130,000 dead to date. The coming months promise to add to those totals dramatically. The collateral damage will include the hopes of sports fans.

***

What commentators are labeling a "political tsunami" is shaping up this November. Polls are picking up a new trend -- suburban voters appear to be abandoning Trump. If this holds true, it spells disaster for the GOP. The Democrats are salivating at the monumental victory that may result.

Of course, whichever party is in control means nothing unless the right kind of policies and regulations get implemented. The work of government is difficult, and requires compromise, always taking the views of minority stakeholders into account.

So much damage has been done to this country's standing in the world over the past four years that our global reputation is in tatters. Other leaders, formerly allies, are now passing up opportunities to bother meeting with the U.S. President at all.

Whatever you think of globalization, it is not a choice but a necessity. The old isolationism is no longer feasible, so by pulling back on commitments to UN agencies and multilateral treaties, the U.S. is effectively sheltering in place at the worst possible time.

Just as we as individuals need to connect, so does our government.

The rest of the world is waiting and watching.

***

Speaking of watching, that's what my investigative reporting colleagues do. I know the perfect anthem for them, once they lock onto a subject, even though these words are lifted from a different context altogether:

Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay, I'll be watching you
--The Police

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