Amid anguish of virus, sports offered memorable moments
Sarah Fuller was a goalie on the Vanderbilt women’s soccer team when a chance at history tapped her on the shoulder. The Commodores football team was down a kicker because of COVID-19 issues, so coach Derek Mason reached out to soccer coach Darren Ambrose to see if Fuller might be a good option.
Turns out she was.
Fuller, a senior, became the first woman to play in a Power 5 football game with a kickoff against Missouri on Nov. 28. Two weeks later, she made history again as the first to score with two extra points against Tennessee.
Fuller’s uniform was sent to the College Football Hall of Fame. Her gender-breaking accomplishment was a glimmer of inspiration amid the darkness of a pandemic.
“This whole time has been if I can do it, if I’m good enough to do it,” Fuller said. “It wasn’t if I was a girl or not. So that’s something I’ve really appreciated. At the end of the day, they treated me like an athlete and that’s the best I could ask for.”
A pandemic turned the 2020 sports year into one of the strangest, filled with shutdowns, cancellations, infections and quarantines.
But sports can inspire even in the bleakest of times. And 2020, despite all the hardships and heartbreak, was filled with such moments.
The Kansas City Chiefs created one before the shutdowns began, winning their first Super Bowl title in 50 years behind what-will-hedo-next quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Another long drought ended when Liverpool won the Premier League for its first English championship in 30 years.
The Dodgers kept the trend going at the end of a pandemic-shortened baseball season, earning their first World Series title since 1988.
“We never stopped,” World Series MVP Corey Seager said. “We were ready to go as soon as the bell was called and once it did, we kept rolling.”
The NHL and NBA stopped then started again in a most pandemic way: in bubbles.
The Tampa Bay Lightning made the most of their two-month stay in Edmonton, winning the franchise’s second Stanley Cup (with
2004) by beating the Dallas Stars in six games.
The Lakers started 2020 in mourning after Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter and six others died in a helicopter crash.
The Lakers honored the former star and Hall of Famer the best way they could, winning the franchise’s record-tying 17th championship — the first since Kobe won his fifth in 2009 — by beating the Miami Heat in six games.
“All we wanted was to do it for him,” Lakers big man Anthony Davis said. “I know he’s looking down on us, proud of us.”
Lewis Hamilton made some of his own history, racing to his seventh Formula One title to match Michael Schmacher’s career mark.
Denny Hamlin kicked off the pre-pandemic NASCAR season by becoming the fourth driver to win the Daytona 500 in consecutive years. Popular driver Chase Elliott capped the shortened season by winning his first Cup Series championship, coming from the back of the field to take the checkered flag in seven-time champion Jimmy Johnson’s final race.
“To share a moment like that, Jimmie’s last race, to win and lock the championship, those are moments you can only dream and this is a dream.” said Elliott, who received a big hug from Johnson after his Cup-clinching win.