George Ferguson Column: Sports are lifting us up again

It’s been a tough one. To play or not to play?

That question during this pandemic has weighed heavy on my mind, and it’s one I’ve never fully been able to reconcile with one way or another.

Of course, my heart is in sports, at all levels. I mean, for one thing, it’s what I do for a living. So understandably, I have wanted sports to get back to some kind of normalcy.

Coaching is another part of what I do, and after not being able to coach last spring, I wanted nothing more then to be on the golf course coaching this past summer and fall, and that’s exactly what I was able to do, and I’m so grateful for it.

Yet, in these trying times, the decision to play has not been an easy one, not on a personal level anyway. Having said that, though, with all that’s gone on, I’m sure glad the big boys, and girls decided to play.

Watching game one of a neutral site World Series Tuesday night, I couldn’t help but almost feel relieved. No, this year’s fall classic is anything but normal, and honestly, I don’t like the Rays, and I despise the Dodgers, but still, I was so glad that it’s being played. It’s something. To me, it signals, if only for a few hours, that there are things in this world right now that are OK. And, that someday, we’ll really all be OK again.

That’s the way I’ve felt ever since major sports came back. It’s relieved tension and much of the anxiety I feel about this pandemic, even if the relief comes in short bursts.

It started with pro golf, which was one of the first major sports to return, and while nothing about watching pro golf is like it was, as the excitement of fans is noticeably absent, starting all the way back in June, just seeing golf on TV made me feel better.

Baseball added to that feeling, too. In fact, I really got into watching baseball on TV this summer. I love baseball anyway, and I live and breath the Chicago Cubs, but watching regular season games this summer just meant more. Watching the Cubs every single day, even inside empty stadiums, just made me almost feel like life was normal, if only for a little while. But regardless, I really enjoyed watching games this summer, as weird as that sounds.

Then there’s the NBA. For me, the NBA has set the standards during this pandemic. What the NBA did with “the bubble” and how exciting the games turned out to be, it really drew me in, and I can easily say, I haven’t enjoyed an NBA postseason this much since the Bulls last title.

Yes, for much of the summer, golf, baseball and the NBA kept me going. But I also dreaded the fall, especially once I came to terms with the fact that there would be no local college football season. I just didn’t know what the heck I was going to do without the Griz, without going to games, and without having Griz-Cat to look forward to. And I’ll tell you, there is a part of me that is empty right now. I do feel that void, because college football in Montana is so special.

And yet, Saturday’s have been OK. First off, I’m not mad like I usually am on Griz football Saturday’s. And secondly, the FBS has been entertaining, and that, along with NFL Sunday’s, even though the Vikings are absolute trash, they’ve been good so far, too.

There’s also been the U.S. Open and French Open tennis, those have been a big part of my sports recovery, too.

In other words, pro and college sports have done exactly what I need them to do, be a beacon of hope in an otherwise dark time.

You see, that’s usually what sports have always done. When life has gotten us down, through tragedy and heartache, national and global emergencies, and through the darkest days, sports have always lifted us up. But in the early days of this pandemic, even sports couldn’t do that.

Now though, months later, that’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re helping us, they’re inspiring us, and they’re seeing us through these tough times. That’s what sports have always done for me, and they’re finally doing them again.

So, while I will never fully know what’s truly right, as it relates to playing games during a global emergency, at the end of the day, I’m glad we’re playing nonetheless.

I don’t know where my mind would be right now without sports. And, because I know the next phase of this pandemic, namely this winter, is going to be really tough on all of us, I’m going to continue to be very grateful that we have sports to help see us through it all.