The future is in good hands
FOUL BALLS
It’s that time of year again. No, not Christmastime where everyone buys each other gifts and we all pretend to like each other for two or three days before we go back to normal. No, it’s that time of year again where schools shut down for the COVID and everyone goes back to online learning until things start quieting down and we can try this again.
And from someone who’s been out to a lot of games and school functions? It’s about time.
I’ve been to sporting events since August, and the amount of times I’ve seen a crowd properly social-distancing or even properly wearing their masks is slim to none. The players have an excuse not to wear masks. The parents and spectators? Not so much. Even then, the worst part of this whole thing, is the players have almost always done a better job than the spectators. The coaches reinforce that they need to be doing things correctly, and the players want to do things correctly because they want to keep playing.
The more coaches I’ve talked to this year, the more I’ve realized how much better so many high school athletes are doing than any other group. Most teams encouraged their starters to go to online learning, limit their interaction with others as much as possible, and gave them the personal responsibility to know that the future of their season rested on their individual choices. The strange part? Most student athletes rose to that challenge.
I’ve been to Clinton Middle School and Harriman and Norris multiple times since school resumed, only to see students properly distanced and wearing their masks correctly, with it pulled up over their noses.
Seeing all of that, though, makes it even more frustrating to see grown adults that can’t be bothered to wear a mask while they’re out. Grown adults arguing with the ticket-takers at basketball games because they’re asked to wear their mask. Grown adults that are so afraid of the slightest discomfort that they moan when they’re asked to wear it correctly like petulant ghosts in a low-budget haunted house.
This year has given me a strange mixture of positive and negative reinforcement. I’ve seen students and teenagers pulling together to do what they’re supposed to and taking responsibility for themselves. At the same time, though, I’ve seen adults that stamp their feet and throw tantrums like children. I keep wondering if things were always like this and I’m just now seeing it, or if this year somehow did bring out both the best and the worst in those around us.
Either way: the actions of the students and student athletes that I’ve seen these past few months have given me great hope for the future. The actions of the adults I’ve seen these past months give me little hope that we’ll make it to that future.
