PAGE A12, KEIZERTIMES, MARCH 27, 2020
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KEIZERTIMES.COM
CANCELED:
More than
winning
and losing
BY MATT RAWLINGS
Of the Keizertimes
Over the last few weeks, life
as we know it in this country
has been fl ipped upside down
due to the spread-
ing of the corona-
virus.
Lives have been
lost,
businesses
have been shut
down, schools are
closed, weddings
are canceled, pub-
lic gatherings are
forbidden, toilet paper is a nov-
elty. I could go on and on.
While the loss of sports is
minuscule in comparison to a
lot of those things, it has still
had an enormous impact on
millions across the nation.
It’s no secret that sports has a
huge infl uence over our culture,
and for many people — includ-
ing myself, if I’m being honest
— the moment when people
realized that the
coronavirus
was
much more serious
than the common
fl u was when the
NCAA Basketball
Tournament was
canceled.
Over the course
of a 48-hour peri-
od, the entire sports world was
shut down. Everything from the
NBA to Little League was put
on hold.
As an avid sports lover, I still
haven’t gotten over how surre-
al these last 21 days have been.
Mind of
Matt
Sure, I’m incredibly disappoint-
ed that as we’re entering a great
season in the sports world —
March Madness, NBA Playoffs,
The Masters, MLB Opening
Day — it all gets ripped away.
But the gloominess of having
no sports goes much deeper, at
least for me.
I hurt for all the stadium
workers and vendors who, in
the blink of an eye, lost a pay-
check that they desperately
needed. I hurt for little leaguers
who were excited to enter their
fi rst year of competitive baseball
and don’t understand why they
are unable to play with their
friends.
Above all, I hurt for the high
school and college seniors who
possibly played their last com-
petitive game without even
knowing it. The athletes who
didn’t get to experience senior
night or play the sport they
have loved their whole lives in
front of their family and friends
one last time. The people that
worked so hard all season for a
goal and then had it ripped away
from them without warning.
I experience the most em-
pathy for these seniors because
I know what they are going
through.
I played football, basketball,
baseball all through growing up
and lettered in all three sports in
my sophomore and junior years
of high school. I had a goal of
playing baseball in college, but
I was thrilled by the possibility
of one last hurrah in my senior
year of high school sports.
And then, unexpectedly, it
got taken away.
At the end of my junior year,
I was experiencing nasty daily
headaches. But I continued to
play and go about my life like
everything was normal.
When the summer came,
however, I just couldn’t take it
anymore.
The headaches got worse
and worse every day. As time
passed, I developed numerous
other symptoms that continued
to completely hamper my qual-
ity of life.
In a span of 365 days, I went
from being a happy, healthy,
three-sport athlete, to having
a feeding tube inserted in my
stomach, an ice-pack on my
head at nearly all times and an
inability to even walk from the
car to a doctor’s offi ce.
I missed my senior year. I
didn’t get to graduate with all
my friends. I was in excru-
ciating pain every day and I
couldn’t see a light at the end of
the tunnel.
Despite all the other issues
I was having, I often thought
about how I would never play
competitive sports again. It tore
me up that I would never again
hear the shrieking cheer of my
loving mother from the stands
whenever I did something well,
even if it moderately embar-
rassed me — like when I hit my
only high school home run in
a meaningless non-league game
and tried to play it cool like this
was a normal thing I did and
she got so excited that her fold-
ing chair collapsed, but she kept
on screaming in approval.
I thought about all the time
and the hours I had put in and
how it was all taken away by my
body’s betrayal.
Besides my Christian faith
and my unbelievably support-
ive family, where I found some
semblance of delight was watch-
ing Chip Kelly and the Oregon
football team pull off the most
successful two-year stretch in
program history (2009-10).
I hung on every snap as the
Ducks won back-to-back Pac-
10 titles, made an appearance in
the Rose Bowl and even made
it to the National Title game.
My father admitted to me years
later that he used to pray that
the Ducks would win because it
was one of the only things that
brought his son joy during this
trial. Normally, praying for your
favorite team to win would be
absurd, but I think my pops de-
serves an exception.
Even if it was only on Sat-
urday afternoons in the fall, for
three brief hours, I was distract-
ed from what was ailing me.
I wrote a column in Janu-
ary about sports being the great
unifi er. We have also seen nu-
merous examples in the past of
how sports can be a great healer
as well.
After 9/11 when the New
York Yankees returned to the
ballfi eld two weeks after the
worst terrorist attack to ever
occur on U.S. soil, they were
greeted with both tears and
chants of “U-S-A” as they
joined members of the NYPD
and the FDNY on the fi eld
during the pregame ceremony.
In the aftermath of Hurri-
cane Katrina, the New Orleans
Saints returned to the Louisiana
Superdome for the fi rst time in
over a year on Sept. 25, 2006 to
take on the Atlanta Falcons on
Monday Night Football. Steve
Gleason blocked a punt that was
recovered for a touchdown on
the fourth play of the contest, a
play that signaled the rebirth of
a city that was in dire pain —
there is even a statue outside the
stadium to honor the legendary
block.
There are numerous other
Please see SPORTS., Page A9
OSAA not ready to give up on spring sports
File
LEFT: Luke Skipper is expected to be the top tennis player for the McNary boys program if there is a spring sports season. RIGHT: Kylie Dean hopes to be one of the top throwers in the league for
the McNary girls track team.
BY MATT RAWLINGS
Of the Keizertimes
The OSAA is still holding
out hope for being able to es-
tablish some semblance of a
spring sports season.
On Wednesday, March 18,
the OSAA announced that it
would extend the suspension
of the spring sports season to
April 28 after Oregon Gover-
nor Kate Brown announced
the day prior that all schools
would be closed due to the
spread of the COVID-19 vi-
rus.
“It’s unlike anything we
have ever seen,” said Peter We-
ber, who has been the execu-
tive director for the OSAA for
more than two decades. “We’re
just all trying to make the best
decision possible and work
with medical experts on what
our next move should be.”
The OSAA Executive
Board will meet via confer-
ence call on April 1 and April
15 to discuss if the spring sea-
son should be canceled, or if
competition will return in
May.
However, many of their
decisions might be predicated
on what happens if the schools
will re-open on the scheduled
day.
“Because we are so tied
to the schools, we wanted to
align ourselves with them.
That’s one of the reasons we
haven’t canceled yet,” Weber
said.
Last week, the OSAA staff
discussed what the options
were for each sport in the
likely chance that teams would
have to compete in a short-
ened season — if there is a
season at all.
If the school year ends up
getting extended to late-June,
it could have an impact on if
the OSAA decides to have a
spring season.
“Certainly, we would take
that into consideration,” We-
ber said. “To be honest, we
also talked about, if the kids
are out of school for all this
period of time, and they come
back, and the fi rst thing they
do is get out of school to go
to these activities and sports,
it’s kind of in the back of our
minds that there needs to be a
balance there.”
While the OSAA is still
waiting to make a decision
on whether or not there will
be a spring sports season, they
have already made the decision
to cancel the speech and solo
music state championships —
speech was scheduled for April
23-25 and solo music was
scheduled for May 2.
“We just ran into a lot of
issues with the timing,” Weber
said.
The state championships
for band, choir and orchestra
have not been canceled, but
the OSAA board will likely
have a discussion about those
events on April 1.
If there is a track and fi eld
season, the OSAA has elected
not to hold the state meet at
Hayward Field in Eugene. The
6A, 5A and 4A meets will be
held at Mount Hood Com-
munity College on May 29-
30, while 3A, 2A and 1A meets
will be held on the same days
at Western Oregon University.
The NCAA has canceled
all intercollegiate spring sports
for 2020 and many states
across the country have done
the same for their high school
sports. But Weber, and the rest
of the OSAA staff, want to do
their best to provide spring
sports all across the state if
possible.
It may be bleak for the time
being, but Weber will be pro-
ceeding with cautious opti-
mism.
“We still have a level of
hope, but we are also realistic
and we don’t want to string
people along,” Weber said. “We
know how important sports
are for our kids and our com-
munity, so we’re going to ex-
plore all options the best that
we can.”