On March 11th, 2020, the NBA postponed its season, rocking fans of the Portland Trail Blazers. The next day, the rest of the sports world followed.
Imagine you are on the way home from a date with your girlfriend, you had a fantastic time with bowling and dinner. You are on your way back to watch some NBA games and write an article on the upcoming game between the Portland Trail Blazers and Memphis Grizzlies.
Now imagine, you get an alert on your mobile device saying “Thunder-Jazz delayed at start, no reason given” by ESPN. Well, on March 11th, 2020, that’s what happened to me.
I rushed into my workplace, to later get met with breaking news that the NBA had officially suspended its 2019-20 regular season due to Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert testing positive for Covid-19. My co-workers and I were in shock over the news, but we figured that we still had the NCAA March Madness Tournament and the start of MLB in just a matter of days. The next day, however, quickly turned all that around.
Now, usually on my days off, I like to relax and enjoy my time off, but I later was worried that if the NBA was suspended, what about the others? I rushed into work to then get met with the news that the Power 5 (ACC, BIG Ten, Big 12, Pac 12, and SEC) had canceled their tournaments as well, which in my mind meant that the NCAA Tournament was next.
Then, at the snap of a finger, the NCAA canceled its Winter and Spring tournaments, then the MLB would suspend the start of its season, then the NHL, following the NBA, suspended its regular season. It was like watching dominos fall at once, and with my job consisting of sports events, we had nothing to go on.
My co-workers and I were scared of the fact that we might lose our jobs, but we had alternatives with the company to stay at work; however, it wouldn’t last long. The next couple of days would lead my co-workers and I having to go on unemployment as we had to stay home and safe.
For months, I should have been worried about getting my job back or if my family was safe over video chats with Zoom and Facebook Messenger, but I kept thinking about when sports would come back.
I never really knew just how important sport was in my daily life, the one thing that gave me hope that sports would return was watching re-runs of classic games of the NBA on Youtube. The two games I watched were the Portland Trail Blazers vs. the Houston Rockets. Game six of the Western Conference Semi-Finals when Damian Lillard had 25 points and hit the game-winner at the buzzer in 2014.
The second one was CJ McCollum going off in Game 7 of the Western Conference in 2019 against the Denver Nuggets, as he scored 37 points, and the game went to overtime. It felt like I was watching the playoffs this year. I was just waiting for any news to break that we would have sports return. Three months later, the news started to pour in.
The NBA and NHL were coming back, finally the news that I was hoping to hear for months. The NHL coming out with a new playoff format, and later on the NBA making its return to Disney, I felt like a kid that just got told I was going to Disney Land. Then, I would hear MLB and other sports were making their returns as well. At that point, I felt like I just won the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the first time with the Portland Trail Blazers.
At that moment, I made a promise that even if I am not a fan of every single sport, I will never take any sports for granted again. So now that it’s almost time for them to return, I am happy to say, welcome back sports, I missed you, now hit the court, field, or ice and let’s get going again.