Dominoes

Since this pandemic started, there have been phases of YouTube watching patterns that my son James sucks me into – “channels” and topics as varied as Catholic friars, silly science experiments, mind games and lawn mowing stripe patterns. Yeah. He’s got a lot of time on his hands. When he was younger, he used to watch – mesmerized – videos of elaborate Dominoes creations. These days, Dominoes have taken on a new meaning. They have become short-hand for the slow (and perhaps increasingly rapid) eroding of the chances of fall collegiate sports. Yesterday was another big one – the Patriot League shut down fall sports, joining the Ivy League as the two Division 1 conferences (so far) to pull the plug. These aren’t just two D1 leagues. They represent some of the most prestigious schools in the country, and it literally hits close to home. Numerous Division 2 and Division 3 schools and conferences have canceled fall sports as well. There is a gnawing sense of inevitability that eventually most fall college sports will be shut down and/or moved to the spring. Read this sobering piece on the tenuous short-term future of college football.

This “move fall sports to the spring” idea seems to be gaining momentum. You know: Play soccer, volleyball, even football, in the later winter/spring. Good on them! Ah … but lost in this discussion, as often is the case, is our sport (labeling us as a singular ‘sport’ is part of the problem, as I’ll get to shortly). Cross country runners have “another season” in the spring; it’s called “outdoor track.” The fear is that administrators will simply shrug their shoulders and say, “well, the runners don’t lose a season” by canceling fall and waiting till the winter and spring. This is a common stumbling block for us. It’s convenient (and somewhat understandable) to view us as “track” – as one entity of like-minded student-athletes, who happen to have one continuous, endless and somewhat confusing season. I get that. But then, when it’s convenient, which is often, we are “counted” as far more than one entity – “track” – but rather what we actually ARE. And that is: Six distinct teams and six distinct seasons, with six distinct championship seasons. Cross country, indoor track, outdoor track; men and women. Readers of this Fancy Blog get this. It’s been pointed out more than once that “we” – Marist College track and cross country – represent more than 25 percent of the intercollegiate teams our school offers (for those keeping score, that is 23 teams … and we’re six of them!).

So, canceling fall sports, if it happens hurts. Moving fall sports to the spring lessens the blow – for all of the fall sports athletes who don’t have a spring season in another sport, like WE do! If this inevitable trend reaches its sad conclusion, we lose. Big time. The cut is deep. The proverbial blood is real. We lose cross country. LISTEN. It hasn’t happened yet. The MAAC has not pulled the plug on the fall sports season. Our Domino is still standing. We continue to train for a season that, if it happens, will surely be truncated and look far different than any we’ve ever had. We have no choice. If given the chance, we must Be Better. If our Domino falls and we are without a fall season, we will have to recalibrate our thinking and learn a new way to Be Better. For now, all we can do is recycle an old maxim of mine: Run, Rehydrate, Run Some More. And stop watching Dominoes videos.