Sports Inside the Bubble - Time Out #259

Covid, Covid, Covid.

Are you tired of it yet, readers in Our Town and far beyond?

I certainly am, and I'm pretty sure my bride, Lady Deborah, is, too!

The Herculean effort to get competitive sports going again in our great country has been a study in human determination for sure.

The thinking, talking, corresponding, video conferencing, telephone calling, etc. in order to make sports come "alive" again probably have taken as much human effort as was required to put people on the moon?

It is really strange for me to watch professional golfers on television, playing against each other, without the usual gallery of spectators looking on, all standing around each green and on the fairways of America's beautiful golf courses. Now, the professional baseball and basketball leagues have gone to the Nth-degree to try to insulate their sports from the dreaded pandemic virus, while professional football and hockey hope to capture some semblance of a season for themselves, too. Many other sports are trying to re-start in order to capture their piece of that huge entertainment $$$ pie.

One of my lifelong friends remarked to me last week, because of the months of the the Covid sports shutdown, he had come to realize, for many years, he had placed too much emphasis on watching sports As he made that statement to me, it made me reflect in my own time management world; I, too, had probably allowed sports too much of a front seat in my life's priorities. Many, many viewing hours involving sports, my dear friends.

It has also become glaringly apparent, entire college athletic department economic budgets have rested on the backs of their football and men's basketball programs. Without those two college sports engines, the school's entire athletic train is severely limited in running down the track.

So, now, I am going to relate to you a personal experience I had long ago, involving my unique sports bubble.

The setting is southeast San Diego, CA, and the time is the winter, 1979. I began basketball officiating at age 20, and officiated it in every state I lived, OK, AL, TN, and CA.. This particular San Diego winter afternoon, I was assigned to officiate an upper level (equivalent to 6-A in OK) high school hoops contest with a partner I had never previously been paired with in a game. That fact was not unusual, but what was terribly unusual were the circumstances of the actual game. We drove our our separate vehicles to the game site, the home school gymnasium, and were let through the school's locked gates by a security guard. Even that fact was not too abnormal. What followed inside the facility certainly was highly irregular. Because of unrest and safety issues between the two participating public schools, the entire game was played without any fans! The players, coaches, trainers, managers, cheerleaders, security, and school officials, who maintained the scoring/timing functions, were the ONLY people allowed in the structure that afternoon. It was so strange for me to run back and forth on the hardwood court, blowing my whistle, while watching my partner perform his officiating duties, too, with very little other noise heard in that large gymnasium. Even the coaching staff said very little to anyone, other than occasionally to their team's players. The game was competitive, score-wise, but with very little complaining from any on-the-court players or their bench personnel. This had to be the most bizarre game I ever officiated in basketball in the 30 years I worked the sport.

Yes, it appears sports are making a hard-earned comeback. Maybe, just maybe, this slight pause in time has provided some different outlooks on our sporting thoughts and ideas??