This column runs in the Summer 2020 issue of Heart Beat of the Texas Hill Country

No one saw it coming.  Wednesday, March 11^th, 2020.  Fans at Chesapeake Arena were excitedly waiting for their Oklahoma City Thunder to tipoff against the Utah Jazz.   It was an important game with playoffs just weeks away; especially for the Thunder who were on a three-game winning streak, nipping at the heels of fourth place Utah.  Twenty-thousand fans in the stands watched the warmups, then the gathering of the head coaches with the referees as the pump-the-team-up music blared throughout the arena.  Thunder fans had a reason to be excited.  The Jazz’s weapon, center Rudy Gobert was not in the line-up due to illness.  Suddenly it became evident that the nationally televised matchup was on delay.  Coaches were still conferring with the referees while the players shrugged at each other and TV broadcasters tried figure out what the holdup was.  Finally, the head coaches returned to their benches and herded the players off the court and back to the locker room.  Fans started to boo as the head referee donned headphones at the scoring table.   The announcer leaned over the microphone.  “Due to unforeseen circumstances, the game tonight has been postponed” followed by “You are all safe” twice.

Within minutes, breaking news came over TVs across the nation – Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert had tested positive for COVID-19!!    The NBA had already decided to start games minus fans the following night because of this strange virus which had recently surfaced in Washington state in a nursing home and was showing up in other states.   But now an NBA player had tested positive and it just happened to be Gobert who just two days before had joked around with reporters touching every microphone and recorder in sight!   By the end of the next day, every sport began shutting down!

Major League Baseball advised players to leave spring training facilities and return to their homes.   The National Hockey League “paused” their season which was just a few weeks from the playoffs.   Major League Soccer and the World Cup qualifying cancelled.  The Players Championship golf tournament in Florida was stopped at the end of the first round.  While college basketball’s “March Madness” was days away from their conference tournaments to be followed by the selection process, some conferences considered playing to an empty house; others cancelled theirs.  The conference tourneys and selection process never happened.  The Summer Olympics was postponed until 2021.  Even NASCAR shut down when it was evident that support teams would be too close to each other while servicing the cars.  Sports went on hiatus for sixty-six days!!   Never had sports experienced such a disruption since World War II.

On Sunday May 17^th, NASCAR paved the way for other sports to resume.  They ran nine races in sixteen days at just two tracks in two states.  Masked support crew numbers were cut in half, drivers wore masks when not in their cars, practices cancelled and the stands were empty of fans.  Other sports began processing plans acceptable to states and health experts while fans crossed fingers and toes that all sports would be back soon!