Play Hurt
I was an athlete for twelve years, and a coach for forty. “Playing hurt” was the athletic tradition for as long as I was involved. The stories became school legends. There was the wrestler who came off the mat with a finger out of joint, demanding someone “pull it” back into place so he could continue the match. There was the football player who turned up in the wrong team huddle during the game after taking a shot to the head. And then there was the pole vaulter who looked awesome in warmups, but an hour later couldn’t run. His Mom shot his fractured foot full of numbing Lidocaine, and at wore off (no, I didn’t know).
In the world of athletics we hold those stories up as examples of dedication and even heroism. We sometimes question the outcome: the wrestler won, but they laughed at the football player, and the pole vaulter didn’t clear his starting height. But we always praised the effort. They “wanted it” more, and were willing to sacrifice.
It’s an American athletic “ethos”. Play hurt. Be dedicated. Don’t be a “quitter”.
COVID Age
So what happens in the “COVID age”? In the “before time” if you had a sore throat, or felt lousy, you still went to practice, still played. That was hammered into you from youth sports: your team needed you to be there, to make it happen. But now you can feel perfectly fine, but your seat assignment in history class means that you are “out” for two weeks, on quarantine for COVID. The unintended result: it pressures everyone to follow a “code of silence”.
In amateur sports and a high school world without real testing, I’m sure it’s happening. And in an environment where politics determines belief in the reality of COVID, it’s easy for athletes and parents to justify taking the step of trying to ignore the disease.
Show the Way
So it’s more than important that our national leaders present a good example to the public. It’s not just Joe Biden emphasizing wearing a mask. The headline in the right wing social media is “No one shows up for Biden Rally!!!” But Biden isn’t having rallies. He isn’t putting people together to create “super-spreader” events. That’s Trump’s strategy.
In fact, the President has been the “example” of the old athletic ethos “playing hurt”. He was diagnosed with COVID, and then made a “miraculous” recovery. Within days, far too few days according to the Centers for Disease Control, he was back out on the campaign trail, maskless, drawing “his people” together in the biggest public events held in some states since March.
And now, Marc Short, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff has been diagnosed with COVID. Short was for a long time the most “reasonable” member of the Trump team, the one who seemed to speak logically when others like Kelly Ann Conway were talking “alternate facts”. Then he moved out of the direct “Trump” lineup, and took the “Chief” job with the Vice President, a job requiring frequent close personal contact with Mike Pence.
So Short has COVID. Pence, according to the CDC rules on personal contact, should quarantine for fourteen days. But, like that kid on the team in high school, Pence is ignoring that regulation. He’s staying out on the campaign trail, declaring his politicking (not his job as Vice President) an “essential activity” that requires him to risk infecting – others.
Contrast
Former Trump Homeland Security and Terrorism Advisor Tom Bossert describes the national COVID response with, “This is a team sport”. If the “team” all gets on the same simple page: masks, social distancing, reducing contact; we can “win” by reducing the spread of COVID. But the Trump campaign is playing only for their own “team”. They are playing to win the election, regardless of the consequences to the American public.
And more importantly, Trump, and now Vice President Pence, are setting “glaring” examples of what NOT to do in a global pandemic. When Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris was similarly exposed to COVID – she came “off” the campaign trail. When Joe Biden walks onto the debate stage, he’s wearing a mask. And finally, when former President Barack Obama “rallied” for Biden, it was in a parking lot with spectators separated into their own vehicles. Instead of cheers, there were the honks of car horns.
So what are the President and Vice President saying to that running back who “can’t smell the coffee” in the morning (a sure sign of COVID infection)? Get out there and “play hurt”, don’t tell your parents or coaches what’s going on. Do it for your “team”, because it’s more important than slowing the pandemic’s spread.
It’s not only what our national leaders say: it’s what they do.
