Sports can wait. Now’s the time to find ways to help the helpers.
Mitch Barnhart has hit a lot of right notes building the University of Kentucky’s athletics program, but earlier this week I think the athletics director suggested something slightly off-key.
On Wednesday, Barnhart sent a letter to the Big Blue Nation about the SEC’s decision to cancel the full spring sports season, including baseball, softball and track and field, because of the coronavirus pandemic. The AD explained how ticket-buyers could get refunds, but added this:
“If you are interested in forgoing your refund for baseball and softball season tickets and making that a donation to our program, we would sincerely appreciate it.”
If those ticket-holders want to “donate” that money to an athletics program projected to receive $44.6 million from the SEC for the 2018-19 fiscal year, go for it. One of my columnist rules is I don’t tell readers how to spend their money. I’ve never written you should show up to “support the team” nor will I. Not my job. That’s their job.
And I understand, like everyone in America right now, even big-time college sports programs are worried about revenue shortfalls and their economic circumstances. (Guilty as charged.) Just this week, Arkansas Athletics Director Hunter Yurachek told his school’s board of governors that league members are expecting to lose $2 million to $3 million each because of the cancellations. That’s not a drop in the bucket.
And yet there was something I stumbled upon this week that, for me, put things into perspective right now.
Dr. Kira Taylor, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Louisville, made this request on her Facebook page Thursday:
“From a nurse FB friend. Do you have a baby monitor you can give up? Calling all Facebook friends!! UofL Hospital needs old baby monitors that you are no longer using! Any patient that we get for COVID-19 or rule out COVID-19 must be in a room with the door closed. Some of these patients are on ventilators and have multiple IV pumps that need to be closely monitored for alarms. The alarms can be difficult to hear when the doors are closed. If you have a baby monitor you are no longer using and would be willing to donate (and not get back due to exposure) please let me know, we could really use them in our unit and throughout the hospital.”
Baby monitors.
I would never have thought of that, but then we don’t often think of the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) so in need right now at our hospitals, things such as masks, gloves, ventilators, medical supplies, equipment and, yes, personnel.
Just as we all take for granted the cooks, waiters and waitresses and other employees at the restaurants we love or clerks at the stores we frequent until so many are suddenly out of a job because of the necessary but tough restrictions brought about to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
Here let’s stop and join the chorus praising Gov. Andy Beshear and what he has been able to accomplish in his daily briefings, finding the right balance between calmness — “We’re all going to get through this.” — and urgency. That’s a difficult line to walk. And the governor is navigating that tricky terrain every day.
One of the things that stuck out to me about the recent “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” documentary on Mr. Rogers was his mother’s direction in scary times to “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
If you want to help, look for the blood banks and the food banks, God’s Pantry, or FoodChain, the local non-profit kitchen that provides meals. Or Meals on Wheels, or ways to get meals to school children forced to stay at home, or charities that can support our local hospitals and medical facilities.
And remember, until further notice, you don’t need money to provide the most important help of all.
Stay home.
