The 65-inch LED television mounted on the wall came to life with a push of a button from a remote control I found on the sofa. I eased slowly towards the cushioned seat like an old man bothered by arthritis and back pain; not that it is untrue, but today I am pain-free, and I wish there are more days like this. The coffee mug I hold with my left hand is full to the brim, and all I can think of as I slowly sat down is the good fortune of keeping my legs and the floor free of spilled coffee, for it is too early in the day to be mopping the mess of my clumsiness and insouciance. But I risk it all the time anyway because this is the perfect amount of coffee I want to have in the morning and life is not worth living without the thrill of harmless risks. And if I make a mess, then it is not a great start to a day, but that is ok, I’ll settle for good, or even typical: hot coffee, soft sofa, and an NBA game.
But it was 2020. Life has been upended by a pandemic. In the Year of the New Normal, nothing is typical.
It took a few minutes for coffee to reach the brain, and even then, the haze of somnolence hasn’t been fully lifted yet, so it took me a few moments to sort things out and make sense of things. Yesterday, the OKC-Utah match was canceled. Players warming up before tip-off were asked to return to their respective locker rooms, and fans were asked to exit the stadium and go home. I thought there was a bomb scare, but it turns out, it was because of some virus with flu-like symptoms, and Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert has it.
The coronavirus disease – we used to call it NCOV in the early days, but now it is more popularly known as COVID-19 – has introduced itself to the world early in the year, and because of the conceit in our hearts, or the ignorance in our minds, or the arrogance from our severely misguided sense of being impervious and unsusceptible to the troubles of the rest of the world, we ignored it and dismissed it as another inconvenience that would soon disappear.
I personally didn’t take it as seriously as I should have. Now, the NBA has suspended one game, and the following day fans were informed that the season is on hold. The PBA, just three days after the opening of the 2020 Philippine Cup, also announced that games were indefinitely suspended. Basketball is a religion in the Philippines, and as a true-blooded Filipino, my immediate lament was obvious (and, in retrospect, petty): what am I going to watch now?
As COVID-19 grew to become a global menace, it shut down life as we know it – no commute, no mass gatherings, and no physical interactions. It meant no travel, no work, no recreation, and no sports. No one was prepared for what happened next, and this is why it was unforgettable. It was like watching domino pieces fall one by one, watching this collective collapse accelerate faster and faster and faster.
Tethered boats in the eve of a storm
The NBA and the NBA G League suspended the season. FIBA competitions were suspended, as well as American collegiate basketball. No games in The Big Ten, The Big East, The Big 12, The Pac-12, AAC, ACC, and SEC. In the Philippines, all basketball tournaments have been suspended, too – the PBA, the National Basketball League, and the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League.
Basketball wasn’t the only one running towards the bomb shelter. Football matches were canceled (La Liga, Major League Soccer). The ATP and ITF suspended all tennis tournaments until April 20. NHL suspended professional ice hockey matches. The NCAA canceled all remaining winter and spring championships. Formula 1 canceled the Australian Grand Prix. In golf, the remainder of The Players Championship and all tournaments through the Valero Texas Open were all canceled. UFC Brasilia was not canceled, but the fight will take place without fans. Other leagues not yet playing have re-arranged their calendars. NFL canceled the scheduled league meeting. MLB canceled spring training. Minor League Baseball announced there would be a delay to the start of the season.
The bad news didn’t end with the announcement of the cancelation of games and suspension of the playing season; what followed was a roll call of athletes and sports personalities infected with COVID-19, from stars like the NBA’s Donovan Mitchell to English Premier League’s Mikel Arteta and Callum Hudson-Odoi.
All of these in just 24 hours. And the days that followed carried the same news of grim. Every sport in the world took a hit.
This was the first time I saw something that is so powerful that it caused such a degree of devastation to sports, an institution that has proven itself sturdy, resilient, and constant through the years. And before things got better, first, it got worst.
Sports stands at the edge of a cliff
Manila was supposed to host the Badminton Asia Championships and the AFF Women’s Championship, but now these have to wait, as do footballers who found themselves with no match to play; the 2020 season of the Philippines Football League suspended along with the start of PFF Women’s League and youth tournaments, while the Copa Paulino Alcantara was canceled for 2020. The Philippine national team’s three remaining matches in the second round of qualification for the 2022 FIFA World Cup was suspended by FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation. The Ceres-Negros versus Bali United match was played without spectators. It was the last football match in the country before the long, agonizing pause that also affected swimmers, volleyball players, national team members, and collegiate athletes. The 11th Asian Swimming Championships was postponed, while the Philippine Superliga’s PSL Grand Prix Conference was suspended. The ASEAN Para Games was canceled, just like UAAP Season 82 and Season 83. NCAA Season 95 ended prematurely with no overall champion. The Philippine Sports Commission canceled all of its sporting events until December 2020 — the Palarong Pambansa, the Philippine National Games, and the ASEAN Para Games.
The shutdown sports was experiencing is worldwide. And even that one major sports spectacle that happens once every four years – the Olympics – was not spared.
Sports events were canceled. Tournaments were being suspended. Sports personalities got sick. Stadiums, which served as halls of athletic competition, have become a refuge for the sick. The iconic Rizal Memorial Sports Complex, the newly-built New Clark City Sports Complex, the Philippine Arena complex, and the Philippine Sports Center were all refurbished as temporary quarantine facilities for COVID-19 patients. When you see stadiums, you think of strong athletes in the peak of health, fine specimen of a human being. Now it is haunted by men and women in PPE gowns and face masks, and sick people in bed isolated from kin and community. As a place where games are fought, stadiums have provided a setting for the display of tenacity and resilience of human beings built and designed to be a fighter. Those who were quarantined here were in the fight of their lives, and it is clear who the fans outside are rooting for. I find solace thinking this buoyed their fighting spirit and gave the sick and the quarantined hope, for the outside world has its own sense of bleakness.
The government prohibited the people from playing basketball, not long after the NBA and the PBA were suspended. This was part of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon. The lockdown was meant to stop people from spreading the virus. Locking the gates of the basketball courts was not enough to keep obstinate ballers out. Barangay officials knew why this is happening. The ring is a beacon, a homing device that calls basketball players to come and play. If they can use the hoop, they will find a way to sneak in to come and play, something that local officials directly addressed. They padlocked the net and placed a slab of wood or a piece of cardboard to cover the ring. When it became apparent this lot were ready to become vandals and law-breakers for the sake of a half-court shoot-around or a quick dose-bente singko pick-up game, barangay officials reminded everyone of the stiff penalties for violators. Ladders came next, brought by men who removed the hoop from the backboard. It felt like a beheading, and now the basketball court lay there dead.
Soon, dust filled the basketball courts that sang the sound of eerie silence, watching night and day come and go, nary a footstep cushioned by rubber slippers, or a basketball bouncing on concrete. At home, I relied on mundane tasks for my basketball fix. The trash can is the classic go-to for shooters practicing their form, but there are other opportunities, too. I roll my dirty laundry in a ball and toss it in the washing machine 3-4 feet away.
Splash! Literally.
I give my imaginary defender my best version of a staredown after a made basket, all the while making a mental note to clean the soap suds and soapy water on the floor around the washing machine.
Without basketball for months, many developed a tick. You’ll see pedestrians walking on the sidewalk suddenly doing a crossover dribble with his imaginary basketball, or someone waiting in line hoisting a shot and holding a perfect follow through. It is embarrassing to watch but they – we – didn’t care. It was one of the few things keeping us sane, as we watch sports and normalcy disappear as the COVID-19 menace raged on.
Casualties of the crisis
It didn’t end with the suspension of tournaments and cancelation of games and the infection of athletes. At the coattails of the raging pandemic is death that sees no exception. Many people died worldwide, including athletes and sports personalities. Doctors warned that older adults face the highest risk of severe illness if infected by the virus. The list of sports personalities who died because of COVID-19 is proof of that. But some died at a young age. Atletico Portada Alta coach Francisco Garcia was 21 years old. Japanese sumo wrestler Shobushi was 28. NBA reporter Sekou Smith was 48.
Those who survived have a different battle to fight. With the cancelation of games and suspension of tournaments, many people became jobless. Financial insecurity became a major problem for people who relied on sports for wages that sustain them and their families.
A question of what we will become
The parade has begun since Day One of this crisis, and the march of those moving on proceeds unimpeded. Our collective refusal to not allow our institutions like sports to shrink and cower is the rock upon which this new normal is built upon. In sports, it meant stadiums without live fans, athletes and personnel in masks, tournaments played inside the bubble which the NBA has successfully done, and the strict and rigorous observance of protocols to minimize the risk of potential outbreaks. Sports in the age of COVID-19 is taking shape.
Now, it has been a year since the COVID-19 menace began – a perfect time, if any, to pause and see how much the pandemic has changed sports. I sat down on the sofa like I always do, with a mug of coffee in one hand full to the brim. NBA games have resumed and yet I chose to keep the TV in front of me a blank screen, but in my mind, everything I’ve seen, I’ve read, I’ve heard, are on display, simultaneously playing, an exhibit of the proofs of chaos. What can we find if all of these are distilled?
For me, I see questions.
Underneath the layer of optimism painstakingly nurtured by stakeholders who refused to let sports go quietly into the night, I see anxieties that we should address and not simply sweep under the rug.
For sports fans, there are persisting uncertainties we enjoy entertaining because it gives color and excitement to the very little part and participation we have in this exciting world of athletic prowess and showmanship, as observers who offer what we hope are intelligent opinions to questions cleverly dangled by those who know we are too hungry and too vain to refuse the bait. We allow ourselves to worry about what could happen in the trade deadline, or who would be the first-round pick this year, or which team emerges from the bracket to win it all.
Now, we have something bigger to worry about, and something that, without question, directly and genuinely affects us as fans. Can we return to the stadiums again? And will it feel the same way as before? Will I spend most of the time wondering if the people around me inside this contained space are vaccinated? Will I be distracted by someone from the crowd not wearing a mask, or someone near me coughing? Have we become more tolerant, more compassionate, or more feeling more entitled and privileged?
Policymakers have decisions to make. Shall we return to stadiums now that we know how vulnerable we are to a biological threat or attack? Are we willing to risk it, knowing that something more potent than COVID-19, something that could spread and infect faster, could trigger the next epidemic with a more catastrophic result? How do we rationalize the validity of defiance, of not giving in to fear? How much weight do we give this conviction?
I think about COVID-19 and I think about the future. What kind of impression will this experience of the pandemic create in the minds of children? How will these ideas inform and influence their choices on what kind of sports to pursue and be involved in? More importantly, we should start asking if there is the possibility of stigma for COVID-19 survivors seeking to be athletes and be part of a team sport because this is our moral obligation. How will a child’s COVID-19 medical history factor when it comes to being accepted in a basketball team or a football team, and most importantly for them, when it comes to being accepted as part of a group?
I think about this because of our long and documented history of willful ignorance, bias, and bigotry. Look at how far science has come in studying and understanding HIV-AIDS. Look at the amount of knowledge we have about this health crisis. Look at the effort of organizations and institutions geared at educating everyone with correct information. And look at how people continue to choose to live as misinformed, unevolved creatures that still recoil at the presence of someone who is HIV-positive, thinking one will get infected with HIV with a handshake or a pat on the back or by just being in the same room. Will COVID-19 survivors face the same stigma brought about by ignorance? I see people today, in the age of the internet, social media, online trolls, and fake news, face COVID-19 without a face mask and with ignorance flaunted with God-like abandon, deaf and blind to the methods, reason, and logic of medicine and science and the evidence they’ve gathered. This is far from the promising start I can hope for. Sports is meant to bring people together. It is sad if some people don’t want others to come.
There is a question of what we, as citizens, will become as survivors of this pandemic, we who will move sports forward regardless of whether COVID-19 stays or leaves.
For the Japanese, what they want to become is the perfect mix of cautious and courageous. Japan is determined: Tokyo Olympics will have spectators. This means that the Tokyo Olympics will serve as a litmus test. If there is one to make a calculated and dangerous gamble with high risks and high rewards, why not the very conscientious, methodical, and disciplined Japanese?
If there is no major crisis from opening day to closing ceremonies, it brings hope to the future of sports, that there in the horizon clear as day is the possibility that we can inch closer and closer to a semblance of normal that we used to know and enjoy before the pandemic demanded we change our ways. But if it starts a localized outbreak infecting athletes, officials, spectators, and logistic personnel, it will serve as a cautionary tale, and a warning many will take to heart if they are thinking of organizing another mass gathering event, or if they plan to attend one.
I, on the other hand, will take my spot on the sofa, and from my 65-inch LED television I will watch sports very slowly, very cautiously, reclaim lost grounds, one year after the war began, as I sip hot coffee from my mug full to the brim, looking for any sign that will tell me the tides of fortune has finally turned.