Radio CG 6: Sports & The Truth
September has arrived, and school is getting underway – at least, it’s trying to. The country is currently a hodgepodge of virtual and in-person classes, and the same is true for kids’ sport options. Some schools have cancelled sports entirely; others are trying to keep them going. We set out to discuss how losing sports affects children and how we can craft a sporting plan that keeps kids (and everyone else) safe…but as it often happens, one question led to another, and soon we were confronting some pretty tough issues.
What Do Kids Lose Without Sports?
We’ve touched on the importance of sports for kids before, but we’ll reiterate a few of the points here: Sports help teach kids to be functioning members of society in the following way:
- Encouraging collaboration and cooperation with others
- Often bypassing racial/class divides
- Fosters healthy competition
- Gives many kids something to work for (professional sports career; college sports, etc)
- Athletic pursuits
And that, of course, is just scratching on the surface.
Now, how are kids spending their time if they don’t have sports? Some are trying to find ways around it, transferring to schools that do still offer an active sports league. Others are just…well, hanging out around the house, potentially driving their parents nuts.
America Without Sports
“I used to say sports is the only thing holding this country together,” Dean remarked about midway through the show. Despite the many differences Americans have with one another, sports managed to draw out the best in most people. Almost everyone in the country has a favorite sports team, even if they aren’t following that team religiously. And others may not like that team, but they respect loyalty to it. Sports, in a sense, acted like a kind of glue.
But now?
At the moment, we’ve got hockey. Baseball is limping along. The NBA may opt out of the draft as a form of protest. Even when games do go on, there’s no fans.
Without that pastime, without that glue, are we in the middle of losing one of the few things that draws the country together?
What If It’s Not That Bad?
Our discussion regarding how to safely resume sports ended up taking a somewhat dark turn once we started answering calls.
Here’s the gist of it: One of our callers wanted to know what we thought about the CDC’s “new numbers,” that is, the “quiet release” of data proving that only 6% of people died from COVID-19. Snopes has already done the work for us on that end, so we’ll leave it to you to decide if COVID-19 contributing to, rather than being solely responsible for, a death is enough to discount it entirely.
After that call, though, we did start wondering what would happen if…well, if it turned out COVID-19 wasn’t the horror it was meant to be? If it turned out the government lied to us, if our economy was tanked for months and months for something no worse than an average flu?
Should We, Or Shouldn’t We?
We did, eventually, return to the task at hand. Pat pointed out that the casinos have made it safe to gamble again, and Mary called in to point out certain disinfection techniques that schools and stadiums could adopt.
- Why can’t schools take a page from their books, using glass partitions to help ensure proper social distancing?
- Could stadiums (and maybe schools) adopt the ozone generators currently used to disinfect medical transports?
But unless or until measures like this are enacted, everything we do poses a risk – maybe not to ourselves, but to those around us. Sure, maybe your 15yo hockey player won’t get sick from Coronavirus…but what if he comes into contact with his high-risk 83yo grandmother?
Are we willing to risk our friends and family members, and their friends and family members?
That’s the question we all continue to grapple with as we head into fall. And it’s a question we likely have to ultimately answer for ourselves each time we go outside, or try to play sports, or think about the future.
Stay safe, everyone. Until next time.
