Coronavirus, Sports, and Joy

Convivium, 20 March 2020

The world’s playing fields have been emptied by pandemic but our God-given desire to play like Tom Brady can never be stilled.

It seems a lifetime ago, not 10 days, that I wrote here about the wholesome joy of the Brier, Canada’s national curling championship, held this year in Kingston. The final finished less than 72 hours – in a packed mid-sized arena – before sports was finished altogether. The NBA, the NHL, Major League spring training, everything down to the local junior high school – all suspended due to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

And then this week, when every all-sports-all-the-time channel was running “classic” games from years gone by, there being nothing to cover, came official Big News. Tom Brady, the most successful quarterback in the history of football, left (arguably) the most successful team in the history of football. Next season he will play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, having concluded 20 seasons with the New England Patriots.

It would have normally merited uninterrupted coverage for days. But, as one sportswriter put it, the Brady story was taking place in a parallel universe. In our universe, the pandemic had cancelled sports.

Which is necessary, but remains a shame. Sports is play. Man, created in the image of God, needs both to work and to rest. Holy writ says nothing of God being at play, but He must be at some time, because creatures made in His image need to play. Even the angels dance on the head of a pin, and why would they do that if it wasn’t great fun? 

At the very least, God must delight in our play. As the great Scottish sprinter – and Christian missionary in China – Eric Liddell said, “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” The 1981 Academy Award winner for best picture, Chariots of Fire, tells his story. I might advise watching that during these home-bound days rather than another “classic” game.

Professional sports complicates this a bit. Play, for those engaged professionally in it, has become their work. Does this corrupt the play, to make it work? Maybe for some in practice, but not in principle. No more than the actor on stage or the singer on tour is less at play. Perhaps, like Liddell, they are the blessed ones, whose portion it is to play. And to play on behalf of those who don’t get to play.

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https://www.convivium.ca/articles/coronavirus-sports-and-joy/