Vicky Graff Photo
Five years ago, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Kentucky.
In just a matter of a short few days, the deadly virus brought our county, state, nation, and world to its knees. Restaurants, churches, and sporting events were shut down. It was an eerie feeling.
It seemed like the world stopped turning, and social distancing and masks became part of everyday life. Life changed suddenly and not for the better, especially for me following the loss of my mom to COVID-19 on Oct. 5, 2020.
I can still remember driving to Nashville to cover the Southeastern Conference Tournament five years ago this week. I made it to Bowling Green and my boss called and told me to return home because the tournament had been canceled.
At the time, I wasn’t happy and frustrated, not fully knowing the full danger the virus had imposed on humanity. After all, it had been more than 100 years since a pandemic gripped humanity from all walks of life.
Sports suddenly took a backseat to a health crisis. At Kentucky, former coach John Calipari’s team was on the brink of a possible deep run in the NCAA Tournament. Out West, Brigham Young, coached by current Wildcats coach Mark Pope, was enjoying one of the best seasons the Cougars had put together in a decade.
At the time, it didn’t take Pope long to realize that COVID-19 was a serious matter and a health crisis “way more serious than basketball.”
“It was way more far-reaching, and way more important than anything that we do in basketball,” Pope said last week.
However, the thought of not finishing a season was hard for Pope and his squad.
“It was devastating,” he said. “We had a great team. We were a Top 20 team. I think the first team at BYU in a decade that had that had been a Top 20-ranked team. We had a bunch of seniors that had never been to the NCAA Tournament in their tenure at BYU, and guys that had just gelled together and kind of defied all the odds to put together an unbelievable product, unbeatable team on the floor.”
Much like Kentucky at the time, Pope’s squad was “in full prep mode” before leagues and conferences around the nation blew the whistle on the season. Pope remembers the feeling his team experienced after their league tournament was canceled.
“I remember most is like the absolute gut-wrenching and guttural devastation of my guys,” he said. “It was devastating — just on that little slice of the part of basketball that just mattered to us individually. It was devastating.”
Looking back, Pope said the experience served as a reminder to live in the precious moment on and off the court.
“It’s one of those things that we have throughout our life that helps you get better at being in the present, enjoying every single moment because you just know you don’t and might not get the next one.
“Those guys, those seniors who’d worked their entire lives to finally get over the hump in or earn that opportunity to go play in that tournament as a team, that was pretty hard and pretty exciting to lose. That is just a reminder of, ‘let’s make sure that we never take for granted today again.’ That’s what I remember.”
2 Responses
Perhaps we need to be more concerned with which player/players are mentally prepared to take on the Tourney. Very happy to see Chandler’s contribution on both ends, and I do think he could be a key factor as to how far we advance. Not real confident that either Almanor or Garrison will have their heads anymore involved in post season than they were during current. I would not want to see us have to meet Arkansas bc not sure we would fare any better than first meeting. Obviously this coaching change has re-motivated Califraudi to finally hit some performance levels we didn’t witness during his final few with UK.
Their performance level wasn’t all that great in the second half.
Quit being scared of Arkansas!
Bring that hogass on!