LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Today is March 17.
It was going to be the first day of the NCAA Tournament. The day that I was likely leaving to cover Little Rock (let’s be honest, Arkansas still had some work to do in order to make it back onto the bubble), wherever they ended up.
After watching their worst-to-first transformation during the regular season, I have every belief that the Trojans would’ve brought home a Sun Belt tournament championship. There was just something special about that team this season.
But we’ll never know.
We’ll never know how the conference tournaments would’ve played out. How the brackets would’ve unfolded and how a tournament that captivates the attention of the nation each and every year would’ve surprised us once again.
March is no stranger to drama, and yet the first two weeks of the month have been more dramatic than any of us could’ve anticipated.
The casual observer might ask why, in the face of a disease that has the potential to be deadly, so many are mourning the loss of the sports season?
And there are a multitude of reasons, each as unique as the individual that has them.
But for me it comes down to one simple thing: sports transcends our daily lives.
That might sound arrogant, but hear me out.
Sports are the thing that causes us to congregate in stadiums across college campuses on Saturdays in the fall. The thing that brings us all together in front of a television the first Sunday in February. If you’re a native Kentuckian like me, the first Saturday in May means one thing: Derby Day, and the Indianapolis 500 belongs at the end of that month.
Those are just a few examples, but the underlying point is that sports unite us.
We live in a divided country. There is no way around that. We watch it play out in the national media and on social platforms every day. And if there was any question about that before, after this last week, there shouldn’t be one now.
Sports rise above that. Sports allow people who hold opposing beliefs to put their differences aside and cheer for something together.
Sports give us some time away from the stressors of real-life – the reality of paying bills, dealing with sick loved ones, anxiety from demanding jobs.
Realities that we must currently face for an unknown length of time without any buffer or barrier to help cope.
Sports are something that we have always counted on to bring us together.
And without them, we feel more isolated than ever.
So in its absence, there’s only one thing to do, and it’s something that sports has taught us since the beginning.
To have hope.
A belief that the next game, the next match, the next time— will be better.
Don't forget, there’s always next season.