ORLANDO, Fla. – We are at Walt Disney World for the restart of the NBA, blessed and safe, but rooted and trapped. It is suffocating, restrictive and limiting and every time we complain that we are fenced in, we are … selfish.
We are certainly not alone on an Earth that has stopped spinning. In fact, even the families we left behind have concrete feet. You have children? Can you imagine a summer stuck at home for the most part?
I easy. My daughter Victoria, however, no.
She is an American athletic athlete who will begin her final year as a university student in Georgia. Last winter, he took the opportunity of his young life: an internship at NBC and a trip to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics. They are coveted spots, assigned to very few.
And if that’s not enough: weeks later, he gained another summer internship offer, from Nike, which accepts less than 2% of those who apply.
It has become a difficult decision. After much thought, she took Nike because she would stay in New York City for an entire summer and lasted longer than NBC’s work. And when the coronavirus forced the Olympics to postpone until 2021, it looked like it had chosen wisely.
But this pandemic spares no one, and his visions of staying in a cramped Manhattan apartment and watching people in the Village and getting a cultural dose in Harlem and museums and in Soho became stupid … when Nike’s office in New York has closed until past Notice.
This meant that all interns had to work remotely. Which meant a 22-year-old would stay in her childhood home, using a spare bedroom converted into an office, and spend her time sitting in front of a laptop for hours while Zooming.
She is absolutely blessed. It is also trapped, confined and limited. She is you. And I. And all the others.
His grand plans had to be recalibrated and transformed into a new reality, and it is not the experience he wanted or would have preferred. I hear it in his voice during our calls to reconnect. There is stress and a bit of disappointment mixed with concern for the next month when he returns to UGA.
Will he also do most if not all of his online lessons? What about your last season on the track? All the spring sports of the NCAA were canceled four months ago, which gave her an additional year of eligibility. But college sports, especially non-profit ones, are trapped in a haze of uncertainty right now. Will there also be a season on the track?
As parents, your emotions reflect those of your children. It is the inevitable bond that barely decreases over time, even when they become adults. Ask me how my day is going, and this depends on how your day is going.
We are all trying to do this job as we embrace opportunity and good luck and understand that health and safety are the most important things.
But none of us are alone. We are all connected together. Until there is a sudden turn of science and a new reality in this perplexed world, we are all a family.
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Shaun Powell has been covering the NBA for over 25 years. You can send him an email here, find his archive here and follow it chirping .
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