Return to Play: Resist The Code
If sports is to return, Illinoisans must reject victim culture and reverse code of silence
(Photo Credit: Illinois Newsroom)
Over the holidays, I finished a book by fiction author Don Winslow titled “The Force.”
It’s a book about the subjects we are very familiar with in this country—politics, race, inequality and code. The protagonist, Denny Malone, is a New York policeman and classic anti-hero. He is a dirty cop yet he lives in a world that enables and rewards corruption.
Malone’s loyalty to his partners—equally dirty—is what makes the story so morally complex.
His silence is part of The Code.
Illinois has its own version of The Code.
We expect it from politicians. We expect it from educational ‘leaders’ (toadies is more appropriate descriptor in 2020 for those who work north of I-80), where protection of The Code yields personal rewards.
They continue to justify school and sport shutdowns, hide behind the ‘health and safety’ shield, because they know the powerful have their backs. The Code above all else.
But for the coaches, parents and athletes, what Code are they protecting?
I get emails/tweets all the time from coaches and athletes about how much they want to play. Parents saying how hard their son or daughter is training, how badly they want to suit up with their teammates one more time. That’s great to see and hear.
But it’s not enough.
High school and youth sports are at a breaking point right now in this state. There is zero leadership from those charged with athletics in the public sector (private is a different matter. They can and will find a way, more empowered if Tier 3 mitigations are lifted Jan. 15). For those that want to play for their high school team, or watch their kids or grandson or niece play in any form in 2021, it is up to the participants and those most invested, to make it happen.
Silence is not an option. Tranquil indifference profits those who live by The Code.
There is recent precedent. Lackeys transforming into leaders.
It happened in Warren County, Ohio.
For the first few months of the 2020-21 school year, the superintendent of Mason School District in Warren County, Jonathan Cooper, enforced standard Covid protocols and mitigations. One of those mitigations was a mandatory 14-day quarantine for anyone found to be close contact with a person who later tested positive for the virus.
But one email from a student last fall helped change Cooper’s thinking.
That student, a football player named Brady Comello, wrote Cooper saying how he had to miss his first ever playoff game as a William Mason High School Comet. The reason was due to a violation of state-mandated quarantine rules. Comello, while masked, reportedly sat next to a student who later tested positive for Covid.
This is what Comello said in the email to Cooper according to the Wall Street Journal:
I am so upset right now that I have to miss my first playoff game and possibly my last high school game ever
You know what Cooper did? Not only did he read the email from Comello, Cooper forwarded the note to the Ohio Governor’s office that included a personal appeal from Cooper, asking the state for an exception to allow Comello to play.
The appeal was denied.
What did Cooper do next? He didn’t just say, ‘well, I did all I could. Too bad for the kid. At least he’s healthy and safe.’
No. The exemption denial made him realize how silly the quarantine rules were. And he went public with his disgust, talking to the Wall Street Journal and to CNN.
This is what Cooper said to the WSJ:
We’re over-quarantining kids like crazy, and it’s creating big stressors on the whole system. What we’d love is for our policy makers to look at everything we’ve learned since last spring and rethink things a little bit, so we could just use that science and that data to try to keep them in school.
Cooper said this on CNN:
…kids are wearing masks 100 percent of the time. And within that three-foot distance of each other, we have not seen any network of spread or any community spread within that zone.
And what we have found over time is that we have not seen that community spread within schools. So, schools have been a safe place for our kids to be.
So quarantining kids, putting them out for 14 days at a time when they’re healthy is a big stress on the system. It’s a stress for families, it’s a stress for our teachers and it’s a stress for our students who are really struggling with that mental health component.
In November, Mason School officials said over a dozen students were hospitalized after reporting suicidal thoughts.
On Dec. 30, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine changed the quarantine rules, saying students and teachers no longer have to quarantine if exposed in school (while wearing masks).
How’s that for getting things done?
I know, I know. Illinois is not Ohio. DeWine is a Republican. Football was played this past fall in Ohio (of course it was…Go Buckeyes!)
But what if the high school football player for the William Mason Comets, Brady Comello, hadn’t sent that email to the superintendent? What if he had just accepted the rules as is and bended the knee to state officials?
My guess is Cooper never would have done anything. There was a study already being conducted within the Mason County Schools about the viability of quarantine rules and those results admittedly swayed Cooper’s thinking on the state’s virus policy.
But Comello’s email made it personal for Cooper. It elicited a visceral response, a note that reminded Cooper, now an administrator, how decades ago, he first got into education for a very specific reason.
To help kids.
And that’s what Cooper did. He didn’t care about what his colleagues or union might think.
He responded to a teenager’s plea for help as any compassionate human being would.
Comello could not control Cooper’s response to his note. But Comello is the one who sent the message.
It is up to the students and parents in the state of Illinois to do the same as this young man in Ohio, to remind education and political officials that there are human beings involved here, and that being a student and athlete is how best to remain healthy and safe.
I wrote in a Tuesday article how the powerful move mountains. Those with power to affect change when it comes to resuming athletics are the following:
*district superintendents
*state and local politicians
Many of you reading might already be thinking, ‘I’ve already emailed my superintendent. My congressman never responds to anything.’
If I just described your circumstance, do it again. And again. And your son and/or daughter should do the same. Send emails. Call the offices. Send tweets and tag the Twitter feeds of the representative and superintendent. Many are doing so already.
If you haven’t sent any notes to your superintendent or state/local politician, I’d recommend doing so now, just as this coach and administrator did. And do it every day.
The Illinois High School Association sent a letter to state athletic directors on Jan. 6, recommending they be the ones to send letters to politicians, to make pleas for #ReturnToPlay. Some may do so, some won’t.
But believing it is up to someone else to affect change, or basically just accepting the situation for what it is, can be dangerous mindset to have.
Let me explain.
The New York Times earlier this week published an article that attempted to victimize and praise college football teams and players that opted out of the 2020 season.
Here are the first four paragraphs of the article:
Who will be college football’s next national champion, Alabama or Ohio State? The correct answer should be neither.
The team we should be cheering won’t be on the field at Hard Rock Stadium near Miami next Monday.
The real champion?
The University of Connecticut, which was the first Football Bowl Subdivision team to squarely face the coronavirus and decide against playing a single snap during a raging pandemic.
Allow me to borrow a noun from the lads at Monty Python’s Flying Circus to describe the above graphs.
Poppycock. With a side of rubbish.
This author, in a mainstream media outlet (shocker!) is arguing that by not playing football, the University of Connecticut should be celebrated. They did the right thing.
The author is selling readers on the idea that running away from a challenge is not only acceptable, it’s what champions do!
It praising and edifying victimhood.
I understand it’s a different dynamic here. Illinois kids are not opting out. Adults, who should know better, are opting out for them.
But resignation to injustices, without protest, is a passive form of victimhood.
We now have bountiful evidence that it is safe to go to school and to play sports. The ‘high-risk’ labeling of football and basketball by the Dark Lord of Lockdowns and his public health servants has zero basis in science or data.
This isn’t a question anymore. We now know this to be true.
Being an athlete and part of a team is about working through adversity. Coaches talk about how the struggle is what makes the reward worth the hardship. And we reward those who act.
Take risks. Expect failure. Surrender? That’s for cowards.
In Winslow’s book “The Force” he holds the most contempt for the politicians.
The higher the seat, the worse they are.
The reason? Pritzker, state representatives, school superintendents, union leaders, they are the most conscious about what they are doing and selling.
They don’t pay the price.
Illinois kids do and have. They are most deserving of our empathy.
Victimization? Don’t go there. Then The Code has truly won.
Many of you reading this have other outlets for athletics. There is personal training, travel teams, private leagues, etc. College is on the horizon. Thoughts of the future and its limitless possibilities is healthier for the mind and body than the scarcity of 2020-21. I get it.
You may also be thinking…I’m just one person. How can that make a difference?
Brady Comello, a senior at William Mason High School just outside of Cincinnati, was one person.
Just a kid with a story to tell. And he had the courage to tell it.
So share your story. Do it today, tomorrow and the next day. It may not matter. The Code rejects more than it accepts.
But give the adults making the decisions the chance to say your dreams don’t matter.
"The ‘high-risk’ labeling of football and basketball by the Dark Lord of Lockdowns and his public health servants has zero basis in science or data.
This isn’t a question anymore. We now know this to be true."
Link to something when you say things like this.