Sports Without Fans And Other Things
May 19, 2020 at 11:49 p.m.
Sports Without Fans And Other Things
By Roger Grossman-
So I offer a buffet of subjects for your consideration today.
NASCAR ran Sunday — a real, live race.
Kevin Harvick won the race at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, but more importantly a sporting event happened in America. It’s the first major sporting event, or minor sporting event, or sporting event of any kind since the Coronavirus shut everything down.
There were no fans in the stands, but there were fans outside the track. They came, they said, just to hear the roar of the engines. They couldn’t see a thing that was happening, but they heard every car turn every lap and the grinding of every car earning its “Darlington Stripe.”
We did see German soccer played over the weekend, too. The crowd on a NASCAR broadcast means very little, but in a soccer venue the crowd’s presence is constant and part of the overall experience. I watched about 20 minutes of a match Saturday, and it was eerie.
No chanting. No noise makers. No celebrations for goal scorers “putting the ball in the back of the ole onion bag.”
Baseball looks to be planning the same thing. They are talking about having players sit in the stands near the dugout so they can spread out more.
No high fives.
No spitting!
No one chasing souvenir foul balls.
Part of the NHL’s plan includes no fighting.
It’s better than nothing…right? Right?
Muffet McGraw retired in the middle of the pandemic.
For more than three decades she was a proven winner at Notre Dame as women’s basketball head coach.
But beyond the wins and championships, she proved that you can be a beautiful, successful woman and still be competitive, resilient and tough as nails. She did things because they were right, not because they were trendy.
She is a credit to coaching, to teaching and to what young women can and should aspire to be.
Oh, it would be wrong not to mention her husband Matt.
He was always there, but never was in the way. When her critics barked, he never barked back.
He never made news. He never had to apologize for what he posted on Twitter.
Classy. Graceful. Notre Dame.
We need a week of sunny, warm, calm weather.
Why? Well, since a lot of us are still cooped up at home, it sure helps our mental health. But fishing is very much not only allowed in the state right now, but it gets my family out of the house. The Grossmans aren’t at the point where we need to eat out inside the restaurant yet. We can’t take the kids too many places yet, but we can take them out to fish.
Hopefully the water temperature will warm up this week so we can put some fish in the bucket.
One last, non-sports-related thing.
You may remember that my wife is a teacher at Lincoln Elementary in here in Warsaw. Last week, the teachers at Lincoln organized a goodbye parade or farewell caravan or whatever you care to call it. They drove up and down the streets of their district in a long line — from Shamrock Mobile Home Park to Market Street — to say goodbye to their students.
The Coronavirus tried to rob them of that. The teachers were never gonna let that happen.
Students, their parents, their brothers and sisters and a lot of other people lined the streets and gathered (safely, of course) on street corners as the teachers drove by to wave at their students and bring some closure to the strangest school year in the history of organized education.
The teachers honked. The kids waived. Some of them, both in the vehicles and on the sidewalks, were wiping the tears away as the procession passed.
It was a reminder to me that, for most teachers, teaching is not a job — it’s a mission. Some of them see their school building as a mission field.
Some of the students look at their teachers like family. Can you imagine what it’s been like for them these last two months — separated from their lifeline to hope?
One of the most significant things that should come from what we have been through this spring is a re-valuing of teachers.
With only hours warning, they created ways to keep in contact with their students and keep them in engaged in learning. They had to figure out things teachers in no generation ever had to before. And they made it work.
So when that parade ended in the Lincoln parking lot last week, there was a palpable emotion.
So when you start to bash a teacher, remember this caravan … and reconsider.
Latest News
E-Editions
So I offer a buffet of subjects for your consideration today.
NASCAR ran Sunday — a real, live race.
Kevin Harvick won the race at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, but more importantly a sporting event happened in America. It’s the first major sporting event, or minor sporting event, or sporting event of any kind since the Coronavirus shut everything down.
There were no fans in the stands, but there were fans outside the track. They came, they said, just to hear the roar of the engines. They couldn’t see a thing that was happening, but they heard every car turn every lap and the grinding of every car earning its “Darlington Stripe.”
We did see German soccer played over the weekend, too. The crowd on a NASCAR broadcast means very little, but in a soccer venue the crowd’s presence is constant and part of the overall experience. I watched about 20 minutes of a match Saturday, and it was eerie.
No chanting. No noise makers. No celebrations for goal scorers “putting the ball in the back of the ole onion bag.”
Baseball looks to be planning the same thing. They are talking about having players sit in the stands near the dugout so they can spread out more.
No high fives.
No spitting!
No one chasing souvenir foul balls.
Part of the NHL’s plan includes no fighting.
It’s better than nothing…right? Right?
Muffet McGraw retired in the middle of the pandemic.
For more than three decades she was a proven winner at Notre Dame as women’s basketball head coach.
But beyond the wins and championships, she proved that you can be a beautiful, successful woman and still be competitive, resilient and tough as nails. She did things because they were right, not because they were trendy.
She is a credit to coaching, to teaching and to what young women can and should aspire to be.
Oh, it would be wrong not to mention her husband Matt.
He was always there, but never was in the way. When her critics barked, he never barked back.
He never made news. He never had to apologize for what he posted on Twitter.
Classy. Graceful. Notre Dame.
We need a week of sunny, warm, calm weather.
Why? Well, since a lot of us are still cooped up at home, it sure helps our mental health. But fishing is very much not only allowed in the state right now, but it gets my family out of the house. The Grossmans aren’t at the point where we need to eat out inside the restaurant yet. We can’t take the kids too many places yet, but we can take them out to fish.
Hopefully the water temperature will warm up this week so we can put some fish in the bucket.
One last, non-sports-related thing.
You may remember that my wife is a teacher at Lincoln Elementary in here in Warsaw. Last week, the teachers at Lincoln organized a goodbye parade or farewell caravan or whatever you care to call it. They drove up and down the streets of their district in a long line — from Shamrock Mobile Home Park to Market Street — to say goodbye to their students.
The Coronavirus tried to rob them of that. The teachers were never gonna let that happen.
Students, their parents, their brothers and sisters and a lot of other people lined the streets and gathered (safely, of course) on street corners as the teachers drove by to wave at their students and bring some closure to the strangest school year in the history of organized education.
The teachers honked. The kids waived. Some of them, both in the vehicles and on the sidewalks, were wiping the tears away as the procession passed.
It was a reminder to me that, for most teachers, teaching is not a job — it’s a mission. Some of them see their school building as a mission field.
Some of the students look at their teachers like family. Can you imagine what it’s been like for them these last two months — separated from their lifeline to hope?
One of the most significant things that should come from what we have been through this spring is a re-valuing of teachers.
With only hours warning, they created ways to keep in contact with their students and keep them in engaged in learning. They had to figure out things teachers in no generation ever had to before. And they made it work.
So when that parade ended in the Lincoln parking lot last week, there was a palpable emotion.
So when you start to bash a teacher, remember this caravan … and reconsider.
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092