I was in South Carolina when this whole situation began. I imagine everyone will remember exactly what they were doing when everything started.
I was on a spring break trip with my club team. I play ultimate frisbee and we were two days into our tournament with one day left. We were spending the whole week in a house on the beach. I remember sitting on a couch with my roommate to my right and one of our friends to my left. We were watching U.S. soccer and the bottom of the screen for ESPN read “NBA season canceled.”
That’s when we kind of knew this situation was going to be a big deal. Shortly before that, UW-Milwaukee had moved online, and we suspected Marquette might be as well. No news came from the university that night, so we pretended like everything was fine and continued to watch soccer.
The next day, we didn’t play until noon and it was our last day of the tournament. Before our games, we received an email from Marquette that we would be moving online for a few weeks. We didn’t know how serious this situation was, but we all knew that we wouldn’t play frisbee for awhile. More importantly, we wouldn’t all be together for a long time.
I think, secretly, we knew that it would be our last time playing frisbee this year and it started to sink in as we came closer to game time. As a sophomore, I was really bummed because we had hopes of making it to College Nationals, which would have been in Milwaukee. We had a great time, we had a lot of skill and we were also really close as a team.
For many of us college students, we are missing out on living on our own, seeing friends, creating memories. I already miss my friends even though it’s only been a couple weeks.
I don’t want to take away from people who are struggling. I know there are people out there who live in horrible situations, who have to deal with this in a much larger way than I do. But I feel this is important to talk about.
What hurt my heart the most was that our seniors would be graduating. For any athlete that’s played in high school, in college or any other situation, the worst game is the last. I would rather lose a game by a ridiculous number than have to play the last game of the season.
I read a great article recently in Ultiworld, which is the hub for ultimate frisbee news. The article talks about how sports provide us with a much needed ending in our lives.
Patrick Stegemoeller writes, “Unlike reality, where nothing ever really ends, sports gives us a hard out. Zeroes on the clock. It’s a catharsis that both fans and players can feel and that most of the time they need. We process the story and come to terms with its ending, an essential practice for all of us as mortal beings.”
The reason that the COVID-19 situation is so difficult, Stegemoeller surmises, is that we don’t get to have an end.
This is a hard truth to deal with, and it applies to every single athlete at Marquette who had their season cut short. Collegiate, club or intramural.
Our seniors will not get to see what they could do when our season would have wound to an end. It’s a hole in our stories that none of us will ever know. I am sad, not because I don’t get to keep playing sports (well, that makes me sad, too) but because I will not get to play sports with this specific group of people.
It’s a cruel ending but when I look back, I’ll remember the best of times with the people I’ve come to know and love through sports.
This story was written by Bryan Geenen. He can be reached at [email protected].
