If there were ever an issue where both sides have equal and compelling arguments, it is whether high school sports should be allowed to take place during the coronavirus pandemic.
I certainly understand the dismay of men such as Bill Devin, Dick Newton, Adolph Graciale and Anthony Grimaldi — the athletic directors of Classical, English, Lynn Tech and KIPP Academy respectively — over the city’s decision to ban winter sports.
Sports enrich student life, help kids get into college, and — in some cases — give students the motivation to stay in school and earn grades that make them eligible to play.
I see their positive results in Lt. Mike Kmiec, former Classical basketball player, who serves as a public information officer on the Lynn police force; in Brianna Rudolph, a former St. Mary’s girls basketball standout now on the Nashua, N.H., police force; and Sean Stellato, former Salem High football player, who is a sports agent. And that’s just to name three.
They have taken the experience and poise they got playing sports and achieved their goals because of it.
Also, I’ve seen, first hand, the passion and commitment high school athletes display, and I admire them more than they’ll ever know.
Having said all that, however, I have to side with the City of Lynn. It’s a terrible choice to have to make, and I can’t see anyone involved making it blithely. Most everyone in the decision-making process understands what these kids stand to lose with this choice.
But until we get a better handle on this virus — and we obviously don’t have that now — all but essential life has to come to a halt. Again.
Right now, we have to remember the primary reason for being in school is to get an education. I would prefer that we work to make our schools safe enough so we can do away with remote and hybrid learning. Get everyone back to school and then worry about sports.
I know it’s easy for me to sit here and pontificate about this. I’m not 16, my future doesn’t ride on whether I impress a college coach, and, at any rate, I’d last about 30 seconds (if that) at a basketball practice.
But where teenagers may be able to weather this thing, people my age might not.
As we’ve seen since March, this is something nobody in our lifetime has experienced. It has flummoxed even the foremost epidemiologists. Its pervasiveness and virulence seem to be too encompassing for our national leaders to grasp, even though many of them have come down with it.
And it has killed more than 280,000 Americans … and counting.
We can’t agree, as a unified country, to wear masks, distance ourselves socially, and refrain from gatherings that can serve as petri dishes for this thing. We have an awful lot to learn about how to use the things we can control to our best advantage and stop railing against that which we cannot.
And here’s what we can control. We can wear masks at all times except, maybe, when we’re at home. We can keep our prescribed distance from people. We can stop congregating in close areas where this virus can leapfrog from person to person. And we can stop thinking and acting as if we know more than the experts, because even they don’t know everything. They just know a heck of a lot more than we do.
It’s not a perfect world. A good friend wrote this week that if you do everything right, error can find you. But for heaven’s sake, we have to try.
It just seems to me playing competitive sports is a recipe for a catastrophe at this point. Look at the NFL, and how many games have to be juggled and moved around because the athletes congregate in close quarters and contract COVID. And every one of those teams has its own medical staff.
I applaud those who made an effort to create a safe environment for the city’s athletes. I know they worked diligently on behalf of those boys and girls, and every athlete in the city should be grateful for Devin, Newton, Graciale, Grimaldi and anyone else who tried to make a go of this. And I also salute schools and athletic directors who are out of the city’s purview and have actually made this work.
But to me, with the numbers surging the way they are, sports are just too risky. Let us really try to put the brakes on this thing, whether it’s through a vaccination shot or by just starving it as much as possible.
That has to be our No. 1 priority.
