When other side arrives, savor every moment

As pandemic has reinforced, ‘what’s next’ is not always guaranteed

There is something eerie in a sense about watching high school student-athletes capture a state championship, in turn reaching the pinnacle of their sport.

After all the years of sacrifice, hours toiling away from the spotlight and firmly within it, the moment comes.

And then it’s gone.

In soccer, it’s time at MAPFRE Stadium in Columbus for the next match.

In football, it’s time at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton for the operations crew to prepare for a looming title tilt.

In track and field, athletes may need to rush to their next event and make way for a group of athletes from another event under the tent.

In other words, the time to savor, in the venue of competition and culmination, is fleeting at best.

And there’s something, as great as the fanfare back home may be, that just doesn’t match the feeling of immediacy.

In “The West Wing,” the longrunning and revered NBC drama about White House staff from earlier this millennium, President Bartlet would look at his staff and say, “What’s next?”

Maybe now, as the world pauses, including high school sports, we should realize how much of a problem that concept is.

Not to be repetitive, but just to be perfectly clear, there are much larger priorities in the world at the moment than high school sports.

We need to take care of our neighbors. We need to flatten the curve. We need to defeat one of the biggest collective enemies of our lifetimes.

But strictly speaking in a high school sports sense, when we do arrive at the other side of this, hopefully it will be a time for all of us to remember that “what’s next” isn’t nearly as important as “what’s now.”

Because, as we have discovered in such a difficult manner, you really never know.

• From The News-Herald coverage area, the Mentor boys basketball team never could have dreamed its thrilling 7672 Division I regional semifinal double-overtime victory over Medina was going to be the end of the road.

• Richmond Heights’ boys basketball team never could have fathomed a trip to the Canton Fieldhouse for a 60-47 D-IV regional semifinal win over

Warren JFK was going to be it.

• Cornerstone Christian’s girls hoops team never could have envisioned being in Columbus but not ever determining its D-IV state final four fate, with a 49-39 win over Buckeye Central in a regional final being its last game.

• Gilmour’s hockey team never could have imagined a 4-1 Kent District final victory over Mentor would be the final time it would take the ice — and not at Nationwide.

Our area’s state-qualifying wrestlers never could have thought district would be their last tournament of the season.

Anyone associated with high school sports, from studentathletes to coaches to administrators to families to fans and beyond, we cringe at the notion of having opportunity taken away “too early.”

We think of the ways life can intervene and hope beyond hope that success or lack thereof is dictated in competition instead.

It’s like that feeling of empathy that peaks when a great track and field athlete steps into the blocks, get 20 meters into the race, grabs for their hamstring and pulls up lame.

You want that power to dictate fate to be in a given athlete’s or team’s hands.

To this day, every so often I still think of the 2007 Mentor boys soccer team, which was told before departing for a D-I state semifinal that year that the match was canceled. The Cardinals had to forfeit their regional final win from three days prior because of the use of two players deemed ineligible by an OHSAA rules interpretation. Word didn’t come until they were ready to leave campus that Tuesday night.

Those players had to go from thinking about how to embark on winning a final-four match and an attempt at school and personal history to their season essentially being over before the bus even left the parking lot. Their raw emotion was understandable — and still would be to this day.

There is such a feeling of helplessness sometimes when life intervenes, and there is really no right way to process it.

Quite frankly, we all feel that way at the moment, as the world battles this coronavirus pandemic.

We hope our individual actions add up and make a difference so we can get to the other side.

There is no telling when that other side will come, which is even more nervewracking.

Again, strictly speaking in a high school sports sense, all we know is winter sports are done, essentially rendering those that didn’t get to state completion an asterisk for this season.

Spring sports? Well, after Gov. Mike DeWine extended the closure of schools until May 1, there is no sugarcoating it: The chances of seeing baseball, lacrosse, softball, tennis and track and field in 2020 is looking bleak, as we try valiantly to hold on to optimism in that regard.

There is talk — and, granted, nothing more for the time being — of a realistic chance of fall sports running into issues up and down the sports landscape, too, including at the high school level.

So, in short, we don’t know when we will emerge on the other side with high school sports up and running as we’ve known them.

When we do, though, here is a wish for all of us.

Let’s clutch the present just a little bit tighter, more near and dear to our heart than ever before.

Let’s appreciate what today brought — and maybe not quite as much as what tomorrow will bring.

Let’s treasure what seems menial.

And above all, when the grand stages do return again, let’s savor those moments just a little bit longer.

Let’s ensure studentathletes and their communities don’t lose sight of the pinnacle and what it should mean to them.

Don’t rush them off the stage.

Because as we’re discovering with life paused as we know it, you just never know what’s next.

Lillstrung can be reached at CLillstrung@ News-Herald.com; @CLillstrungNH on Twitter.

PAUL DICICCO — FOR THE NEWS-HERALD Kirtland players, including Jaymes Torok, left, and Louie Loncar celebrate with their Division V state champion Dec. 6after a 17-7win over Ironton in Canton.