Neil W. Blackmon
Ten years ago this April, one of my oldest and best friends, Vincent Binder, was murdered in an act of random violence.
I haven’t run the numbers on it, but the odds of what happened to him are astronomical. A group of inmates at a Louisiana prison escaped and three states later, managed to run into Vince late one night at an ATM machine in Tallahassee. The rest is a blur of phone calls and manhunts and police searches and sadness.
It remains terrible to not be able to call Vince and talk to him- about sports, politics, Tom Petty records, relationships. His tragic death was also, at the tail end of my 20s, a sobering message about how little in life we control. The idea that one day I was eating sushi and having sake with Vince in San Francisco and a week later he was gone before he turned 30 still doesn’t settle.
It never will.
The idea I don’t have as much control over my life as I’d like, however, has started to sink in. The emergence of the COVID-19 epidemic has been the latest somber reminder.
In a way, I guess if we all listened more in science class, we should have a better grasp of how little we control. After all, the universe expanded exponentially from one point, a singular space or place in time, some kind of quantum happenstance, wherein the universe didn’t so much explode into pre-existent available space but rather it was the space itself that blew out, taking everything with it and continuing to expand, which taken to its logical conclusion, means that you and I are, very quietly, becoming ever smaller pieces of star matter or elemental dust or flesh and bone and water.
The thing is that we get so caught up in the minutiae of everyday life, in the quotidian acts of living and trying to maintain a sense of control, that we often lose perspective on just how quickly the control we think we do have in our lives can be wrested away from us.
The COVID-19 global pandemic is such a moment of perspective.
In these moments, we usually have the ability to take solace in creature comforts, such as sports.
Ask most of us what one complaint we have about our day to day lives was, pre-quarantine, and a good number of us would likely say that we’re so often short on time.
That we devote hours of what little time we have to sports speaks to the power of the emotional and community connections it fashions.
We love sports for moments that mark our memory: Ryan Giggs vs. Arsenal in the 1999 FA Cup, Tiger’s chip at 16 at Augusta in 2005, Kobe’s 81 against Toronto in 2006, Florida going back-to-back in March Madness in 2007, Cam Newton’s comeback in the Iron Bowl in 2010, Ray Allen in the corner in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals, Carli Lloyd going insane against Japan in 2015– these are a few of mine.
This week, the passing of the tenth anniversary of Clint Dempsey’s wonder goal against Juventus was another reminder of the gripping power of sports to provide those rare “I remember where I was and who I was with” moments that so often explain why we watch.
⏪ 10 years ago today…
— GOAL (@goal) March 18, 2020
After losing the first leg 3-1, Fulham pulled their UEFA Cup quarter-final tie with Juventus back to 4-4 on aggregate 🤯
Then, in the 82nd minute, Clint Dempsey did THIS 🤩🇺🇸pic.twitter.com/LUtFQcvPhn
(For me, I was at a bar in Berkeley, California, watching with 20 mostly neutral soccer fans. The place erupted in disbelief and- because it was safe then- high fives among strangers).
Dempsey’s shot was also a reminder that sports provides a rare lens through which we can view genius as an observational experiment- that is– we get to see genius as it happens, not after the fact, as with novelists, directors, actresses, much of art.
Whether we’re watching a grainy Garrincha video, a Dempsey turn and chip, Zidane against Brazil in Paris in 1998, Federer and Roddick at Wimbledon in 2009, a young Rory McIlroy at Congressional in 2011,Leo Messi in the 2015 Champions League, LeBron James in the 2016 NBA Finals, Kate Ledecky in a pool in Rio, Serena… well, anywhere, or Rose Lavelle slaloming through the Dutch defenses last summer in France– genius in sport is something we watch in real time.
But more often, it isn’t about genius or moments. Most games are mundane and less than memorable.
Instead, the largest intrinsic value of sport lies in the people we meet and share the games with. There’s a shared humanity involved in sports that resonates, whether it is a singular moment, a sense of parochial pride and allegiance to the crooks and crannies we call home, or an athlete’s story. The great moments and special seasons are few and far between. What we remember are the friends we met, the conversations we had, the family we were around.
What matters, I guess, is time, and how even with little of it to spare, sports are worth the investment.
Now, as we’re left hanging in a sudden excess of suspended time, it’s hard not to long for those connections.
On the contrary, in the absence or lack of sport, I think we are seeing just what a vital part of the social fabric and of building and healing community sports are and can continue to be.
Japan’s Women’s World Cup victory in 2011 helped a nation heal in the aftermath of earthquake and tsunami that killed over 15,000 citizens, a powerful reminder of the capacity of sport to heal.
It’s an even stranger take because sports have so often been a unifying force or place of refuge in times of social upheaval or chaos: the brilliant Jesse Owens against the backdrop of creeping authoritarianism in Berlin in 1936, the majestic play of Pele and Garrincha amidst the racism and political turbulence of Brazil’s Fourth Republic in 1962, the raised fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, defying racism at home from a gold medal stand in Mexico City in 1968; the Miracle on Ice at the height of the Cold War in 1980; the Mets and Braves at Shea after September 11; the Japanese women’s run to the World Cup in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. These are but a few examples of the ability of sport to pierce the veil of political and societal tumult and unrest.
Now, as coronavirus takes a sledgehammer to global markets, eviscerates jobs in entire industries, shuts down education systems and taxes the limits of our medical infrastructure, there’s no sports to offer solace and stability amidst the chaos. It’s a disquieting void.
Don’t get me wrong. The only sensible decision was to halt play and the only smart and safe choice is to keep the games stopped until the crisis has passed. It’s just that America could have used March Madness this year more than ever, if only to get a break from the troubling but honest assessments of our lack of preparedness for the coming COVID-19 case count. Europeans and others around the globe could have used Champions League knockout games to distract themselves from increasingly dire news coming out of Italy and Spain. Likewise, many of us will miss the NBA, NHL, MLS or MLB Opening Day, not so much because the games matter but because the chance to escape stress and reality, if only for a moment, does.
This quarantine, this moment of social distancing, will pass.
Of course, no one knows when that will be, or, in another nod to things we simply can’t control, when sports will return.
It’s why the initial 30-day suspensions of seasons seemed so overly optimistic and why each day seemingly brings another extension of the suspension in one league or another.
But it’s also an opportunity to forge a different kind of connection. Maybe you’ll find consolation in art, whether it be music, novels, painting, film- all of which share the capacity of sports to make you feel connected, seen and felt. Maybe you’ll see the isolation as liberating from social constraints, a chance to tell someone something you might generally feel socially constrained from sharing. Offering and sharing something rawly and honestly can forge connections some of us leave behind in a world without sports. Maybe that’s a good thing.
We often are our most vulnerable and open with another- and in a way, connected- in times of tragedy– why not in times of social distancing too?
Yes– periods of isolation can be lonely, but they can also be intensely creative, a state of lack that in its own way is imaginative and thrilling.
We can forge community in other ways.
We can recognize our collective vulnerability and our need for community by caring for each other. That begins by doing our part and staying home and staying safe and expands to our ability to do what we each can, if we can, to help the brave men and women and medical personnel who will fight this virus on the frontlines, at great personal and familial risk and costs.
We can help with our brains and if we’re able, with our wallets. All from the comfort of our homes, we can donate to organizations like the Red Cross, or to local food or diaper banks helping those struggling without a consistent paycheck weather the storm of the pandemic. But we must come together and understand that this will likely get worse before it gets better, and that we all have a role to play if we’re going to win.
Above all, it means trying to grapple with the reality that no matter how this COVID-19 pandemic plays out, life in its aftermath is likely to look a little different for all of us. There will be unspeakable loss and grief for many, and growing pains for a society (hopefully) determined to do better and be more prepared the next time.
The good news?
There will be sports too, to distract us, inspire us, and help us heal together.