It’s a rough week for the athletes at Austin College, as all spring sports have been cancelled due to the potential spread of COVID-19. As AD David Norman said this morning:
“My heart goes out to our coaches and players, especially our seniors. I support the actions of Austin College, SCAC and the NCAA, but I hurt for all of our department. We will get through this…the game will go on…We will be 1-0!”
Because of a rapid spread combined with significantly higher than normal hospitalization & lethality rates, the CDC is understandably concerned that COVID-19 will be less like tamer pandemics in our lifetime, and more like the disastrous “Spanish” flu of 1918.
The Spanish flu of 1918 rocked Austin College athletics, just as it did the rest of the country and the world. AC football was forced to cancel numerous games as Roos fell victim to the illness. Roo football eventually ended their entire season prematurely, after only 5 games. From “100 Years of AC Football:”
“The flu epidemic caused the first three games of the season to be cancelled, and when the Kangaroos finally played a game, SMU won 21-0 with six AC starters sick in the hospital.”
It’s likely that students and faculty took the disappointment of the cancellations with perspective. World War was still raging, and many Roos were in Europe under Pershing’s command. Also, the deadliness of the Spanish Flu was underplayed in the media for various political and military reasons. As a result, communities like AC were often blindsided when the plague finally reached their front doors.
12 Oaks stand between Dean & Baker Hall to memorialize the 12 AC students who lost their lives during the horrific year of 1918. Amazingly, only 8 of the 12 were lost because of the war. 4 of the 12 Oaks represent students who succumbed to the Flu pandemic of 1918.
While COVID-19 may turn out to be a bigger threat than any other virus in our lifetimes, there is good news. COVID-19 fatality rates, like most influenza viruses, appear to spare young adults. The 1918 virus did not, to the bewilderment of Americans at the time watching young men and women of college age succumb to the illness. Also, COVID-19 has appeared in a global age of instant communication. Unlike our fellow Roos in 1918 who were caught completely unaware of the threat, we are all able to know exactly what the CDC is telling us and can take appropriate social distancing measures to end the spread.
A Slate article published yesterday amidst the cancellation of athletic activity around the country was a tribute to the power of sports. In it, Eric Nusbaum said the following:
“There are a million bad things about sports but there is one good thing that transcends all of them: community. Here’s what I am going to try to do: In the absence of sports, I am going to try to channel the energy I would have spent watching and thinking about, say, LeBron’s first title as a Laker, into my community. I am going to try to focus on helping. I am going to try to appreciate the miracle of the internet as a means for us to mutually support one another and express our solidarity, instead of whining about how it brings out the worst in us. Sports only matter because we give them meaning. And in their absence, and in the midst of a perilous global moment, we can give meaning to something else. We can give it to one another.”
Sounds like good advice. AC athletes: you may have lost your season, and we know how much that hurts. But know that because you are an athlete, you have a community. Now let’s all work together as a community to Flatten The Curve, beat this thing, and get ready to watch some Roo football next fall.
