2020 has been a crazy year for everyone in the entire world and in sports as well. In January, we lost one of the greatest athletes of all time in Kobe Bryant, an 18 time NBA All-Star and 5 time NBA champion along with his 13 year old daughter, Gianna, and 7 other people in a helicopter crash in Los Angeles.
In March, craziness struck when the stage was set for the world to witness a new pandemic as the COVID-19 virus came. Celebrities like Tom Hanks, Idris Elba, and sports identities like Rudy Gobert, Von Miller, and Sean Payton were the first of many people to become infected with COVID-19. The virus outbreak caused the NBA to shut down the 2019-2020 season until further notice. Eventually, NCAA followed along and shut down March Madness for both the men’s and women’s College basketball tournaments. Other sports professional leagues stopped their operations like the MLB, and the NHL. The NCAA and NJCAA made announcements indicating they had decided to cancel all spring sports and the spring athletic programs.
When reached out about the topic, RVC’s Basketball Assistant Coach, Forrest Hicks, had this to say:
Q: How do you feel about the athletes that were supposed to play spring Sports and it was their final season? How did you feel about the NJCAA canceling their seasons? Do you think they could maybe have a bubble type system for them so they could play or like not?
A: I really feel for everyone involved who lost a season. The NJCAA has given back the year of eligibility to those that were unable to compete last season. I think this is a great move. For college sports it is not very practical and extremely expensive to do a bubble in order to compete. With schools all over the country and student athletes still being Students first I don’t see how a bubble would work in college athletics.
Although some sports organizations cancelled their upcoming seasons, other organizations like the UFC and even sports entertainment (or pro wrestling) organizations like WWE and AEW continued to have events without a big amount of audience, merely having employees stand at ringside. The UFC took a month off because of the virus and came back in May to do some matches down in Florida, the biggest being Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Tony Ferguson for the UFC Lightweight Championship. However, because of COVID-19 and Khabib was in Russia (which had closed its borders to stop Covid 19 from spreading), Khabib was not able to leave the country to fight Tony Ferguson. So UFC President, Dana White, announced an interim championship fight between Tony Ferguson vs Justin Gaethje for the UFC Lightweight Championship, which Gaethje.
Also in May, the nation and in several parts of the world were shaken by the controversial killing of George Floyd by former Police Officer, Derek Chauvin. This sparked countless protests around the nation and around the world to raise awareness about police brutality against minorities, primarily the Black community, and support the Black Lives Matter Movement. This issue was first brought to light all the way back to 2017 when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, started to protest police brutality during the National Anthem by taking a knee.
A message that was once more ignored than supported just a few years ago has now received a lot of support throughout all platforms and especially in sports by noticeable athletes like Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Jimmy Butler, and so on as the NBA has resumed its 2019-2020 season in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic without fans in attendance, or otherwise known as a bubble system (playing games in one arena)
Coach Hicks had this to say about the NBA coming back and finishing their 2019-2020 season:
“I think the NBA is doing it the right way to actually crown a champion in the end. Unlike other professional sports, they are keeping the athletes in the bubble and taking all precautions necessary to finish the season.”
While the NBA was talking about putting the players in a bubble type system. The NHL was talking about a bubble system too. MLB decided they were not going to have a bubble system and they were going to play games at their stadiums without fans. Eventually in late July the NBA, NHL, and MLB came back to finish/start their seasons.The NBA and NHL resumed their seasons in a bubble system and has been a smooth transition so far. For the MLB, however, their start was tough for the first two weeks because some teams found out that some of their players and coaches had COVID-19. For now, the plan is to continue the season as normal, however there have been rumors that if the cases for COVID-19 continue to rise, the MLB might be forced to cancel the rest of the season.
Coach Hicks had this to say about the matter:
Q: Do you think the MLB baseball season will be canceled because people from some of the teams are getting the virus and canceling games?
A: “Yes I do. I don’t really follow baseball too much, but from what I’ve heard it sounds like there have been a lot of delays already.”
Q: Do you think the RVC basketball team will have a basketball season this year? And if you do, would it be like a bubble like the NBA?
A: “The NJCAA has pushed back the season to after January. I think pushing the season back gives us the opportunity to have a season! “
While some college sports may come back that were supposed to be in the fall may come back next year, college football might just play in their own divisions; more people are still getting Covid 19 and still dying in big numbers across the nation. Who knows if sports will still continue, but the good thing is sports are back.
