No one ever could fathom that a virus could change the world so drastically and our lives as a whole. As we all adjust to the shelter-in-place orders, homeschooling our small children, merging our work lives with our home lives, one of the hardest adjustments for a sports family is a life with no baseball, softball, basketball, hockey, or any extracurricular activities. For families who have coaches or kids who have played sports from the time they were toddlers and through college, you understand the impact that sports have on your family dynamic. Weeknights, weekends, road trips, tournaments, wins, and losses are and have been a major part of your lives. Well, COVID-19 happened and has changed the world as we have known it for years.
This evil virus has affected my family personally. Our son, a senior in his final year of college, was gearing up to play his final year of baseball. His final season was just beginning as he and his teammates headed to Arizona to play in their spring training games. Our family made our annual trip to root him and the team on; this is a trip that we’ve done through his college career and it was already bittersweet knowing that this was our last year to cheer them on. They had three games left to play before heading back to school to officially start their season and his final season. When COVID-19 began to become rampant, not only did they not get to play those last three games, they were told by their coach that their season was suspended. Once the virus started to spread further and faster, my son and his team were told that their season was not going to resume at all and this news was absolutely devastating. Our son will never be able to get this time back playing his final year, and for his family, his personal fan club, we will never be able to watch him play his heart out in his final year in a sport that he loves so much.
He will never have the memories of all the games they won this year, the tough games they lost, the amazing plays he had, the hits, the walks, the RBI’s, his dream for his team to get a chance to win the Division 3 Championship. But he will always have another story to tell; the story about the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it not only ruined the last year of his college baseball career but how it stopped the life of sports all over the world.
Our son, his teammates, and their families are all affected by this. You, your family, and families around the world have all been affected in some way, somehow. We are grateful that we have each other and our health right now, but it is still hard not to be selfish with our feelings but we remember that we are not alone. This didn’t just impact our lives, it has impacted the lives of everyone around the world. We are all in this together, and we will all get through this together. Our senior son and my other children have learned about the importance of a team dynamic through having sports in their lives and I work with a strong team here at Sterk Family Law. The world needs to learn to work as a team to support each other to get through this crisis. Stay safe and healthy. We will survive.
Written by Jennifer Hanik
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