How Sports Can Help Cure Covid-19
When the good guys finally win
Who knew that Super Bowl Sunday, February 2, 2020, the day on which the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers to win their first Super Bowl in 50 years, would be one of the last times that people from all over the world would stop what they are doing for one day and come together to revel in communal joy (unless you were a 49ers fan, that is).Who knew that almost a month later the Covid-19 pandemic would turn the world upside down and throw everybody in the world for a whirlwind? Not many people not named Bill Gates, who in 2015 said: “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war.”
Hopefully, Gates will continue to be wrong about the disease’s death tally, but his point has been made. This pandemic, however, did not just infect people, it also infected the sports world . Due to Covid-19, we saw the NCAA March Madness for both men and women get canceled, NBA and NHL pause mid-season, high school sports come to an abrupt end, ad more. The sports world was in an unprecedented event that not only affected its athletes but fans as well. Fast forward a few months and after weeks of deliberations among the player associations, the NBA and MLB were able to finish their seasons and crown the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Dodgers champions, respectively. Whether we knew it or not, a cure for the Covid-19 blues was the hope it gave that the good guys (the Lakers and Dodgers in the middle of the pandemic; the Chiefs just before it started wreaking havoc) could still win.
From that first Covid-19 death in February of 2020 to almost a year later where we sit at 500,000-plus in this country as of this writing, the toll is hard to articulate. Such precious lives that have been have lost, such as first responders that include doctors, cops, firefighters, and essential workers such educators, agriculture workers, grocery employees who trying to provide for their family and others were lost in the battle to Covid. People have lost friends, siblings, parents, grandparents — by now, almost everyone in this country has been touched by loss. Compounding the pain is that many of these deaths could have been avoided if we took the pandemic seriously from the outset.
The pandemic has caused kids to be away from school, friends, teachers and that critical human interaction that develops our social life. Instead of kids playing at recess with friends, or college students socializing with new people from all walks of life, we now spend our days on computers waiting to get into a zoom meeting. While continuing an education may be important, Zoom University is also causing stress, anxiety and loneliness.
In the past, many tuned to ESPN, ABC, FOX, or wherever their favorite sport was being broadcast, as tonic for those kinds of blues and an escape from the anxieties of the real world. The pandemic has taken much of that away. From March 2020-July 2020, in the frightful early days of the pandemic, sports were nowhere to be found and no one knew when they’d be back.
It did not matter what channel you tuned into, the only the only thing people were talking about was the pandemic and what President Trump was doing or not doing in this case. People were starting to lose hope, not just in life, but that this pandemic if it would ever be over.
People were starting to lose hope, not just in life, but that this pandemic if it would ever be over.
In the past, sports have given us something to rally around in our days of doubt. For example, after the Boston Marathon Bombing, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series Championship. Seeing the Boston Red Sox win the championship gave the city a sense of hope that we can overcome our tribulations. A similarly galvanizing moment happened when then-president George W. Bush threw the ceremonial first pitch before Game 3 of the World Series in the aftermath of the 9–11 terrorist attacks. (And, regardless of wha you think of the man, it was a strike down the middle.)
At first, this pandemic robbed people of those moments. During those few months without sports, seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours, hours felt like days, days felt like weeks because we were all waiting for sports, and hope, to return. It finally did on October 12 and 17 of 2020 when the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Dodgers won the NBA and MLB championships in their respective sports. It could not have come at a better time.
The city of Los Angeles was the epicenter of Covid-19 in California, soon to be the epicenter of death an misery in the entire country. The Lakers and Dodgers’ triumphs could not have come at a better time. The championships were a long time coming for both teams. The storied Lakers’s franchise hadn’t hung a championship baner since 2010. The Dodgers, despite knocking on the door every year for the past six years, hadn’t won a World Series since 1988.
In the horrific year of 2020, it was these two championship runs that allowed people in this region (and around the world as both teams are international brands) to breathe for a minute and just enjoy something good. The way they did on that Super Bowl Sunday before we even knew that Covid-19 was a thing.
Vaccines might be the physical cure for Covid-19, but for mental and emotional strength, the cure can be sports.
Stars from all industries congratulated both teams on their wins. Snoop Dog, Jack Nicholas, Shannon Sharpe congratulated the Lakers, while Magic Johnson, Pedro Gomez congratulated the Dodgers. Many more, of course. For most of us ordinary fans, these victories had a slightly different meaning. We saw something redeeming in Lebron James, one of the nicest men you will ever meet who has established schools serving under-funded communities in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, who has argued for racial justice and voting rights for all, and who has done so much for communities all across the world, triumphing over the doubters and haters.
It’s a similar story for Clayton Kershaw who has been jeered for his past playoff performances and injuries, but who never makes excuses, never blames anyone else and whose charity work has raised millions of dollars to help underprivileged kids in the Dominican Republic, Zimbabwe and his hometown Dallas. Kershaw has also been active in raising money to benefit organizatios in Dallas and Los Angeles combatting the pandemic.
Fans saw these two men win the championship for their respective teams even after the obstacles they faced when it came to the pandemic, critics, writers, you name it. Seeing them win the titles showed people all over the world that good guys are still capable of winning even after a horrific year such as 2020. In this we found narratives of hope and resilience that fortify us with the idea that this pandemic is going to end and once it does, we will be better because of it.
Vaccines might be the physical cure for Covid-19, but for mental and emotional strength, the cure can be sports. Sports brings people together from different cultures, backgrounds, traditions and allows them to bond over the love of the game. This bond can give people the hope they need to keep fighting in life. People look forward to spring training, football Sundays, The Masters for golf, and this helps us to push through our tribulations because we reminded that there can be triumph after struggle. Hope is powerful thing as it is the one thing that someone cannot take from you unless you let them.
Hope helps you get to the others side, even after great setbacks. Seeing LeBron James and Clayton Kershaw and their teams of good-guys win was not just a win for the city of Los Angeles, it was a win for all of us.
