For Memphis fans, returning to games amid pandemic will be a calculated risk
Some Grizzlies and Tiger fans ready; others more wary
A life-and-death decision?
That’s not what going to FedExForum for a Grizzlies or Memphis Tigers basketball game is supposed to be.
That’s not what going to Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium to tailgate on Tiger Lane and watch a Memphis football game is supposed to be.
Yet whenever games return and fans are allowed back inside stadiums and arenas — and those things won’t happen simultaneously, but further down a timeline encased with safety protocols that can’t promise 100% effectiveness — the people buying the tickets will have to weigh the risks.
Mike Pohlman, a Tigers football and basketball season ticket holder, has made his calculations. And barring a change in the course of coronavirus pandemic, he is ready to return.
He calls a temperature check before entering the stadium necessary, and but a minor inconvenience, saying, “It’s probably as quick as scanning your ticket.”
So, if Tiger football returns with even 25% of capacity at games, count Pohlman in:
“I’d be there in a heartbeat.”
Corey Gillum, 49, and sounding like the cost analyst that he is, is not ready. He holds Memphis football season tickets and probably attends another 25 games between Tiger hoops and the Grizzlies.
“Would I feel safe?” he asked. “Excuse this sports analogy, but I will be a spectator and watching from the sidelines, which I equate to my couch at home.”
Numbers game
More than 90,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19. Or for a perfectly morbid image, a full Liberty Bowl (capacity 61,000), a full FedExForum (around 18,100), and a packed AutoZone Park (around 10,000).
Shelby County just entered into Phase 2 of reopening, which allows “purposeful” gatherings of fewer than 50 people.
Local youth sports venues are about to reopen with social distancing measures that will keep parents in lawn chairs six feet apart and not crammed together in bleachers behind backstops.
If the Grizzlies’ season resumes, it probably does so without fans in attendance. Even the 2020-2021 NBA season, which might not start until around Christmas, could begin without fans or substantially reduced capacity at games.
College football seems to be moving down the field toward some type of season for teams in this part of the country, but will the Tigers be able to play before fans? And if so, how many — 10,000, 20,000, 30,000?
And even if fans are allowed to attend major college and pro sporting events, how many fans will feel comfortable doing so?
When passion and a concern that borders on fear collide, which side wins?
For Pohlman, it’s passion.
“I really miss it. I’ve only known one person so far that contracted the virus and they’re fine,” said Pohlman, 63, whose football tickets are about 10 to 15 rows behind the Memphis bench. “I’d be willing to go to a game. I’d be willing to tailgate. It doesn’t scare me.”
Of course, even before fans are allowed back inside venues, the respective leagues have to figure out how to bring back players for games without fans.
While many NBA players, including the Grizzlies’ Ja Morant, have expressed a desire to finish the season, there have been concerns raised.
Cleveland Cavaliers forward Larry Nance Jr. has Crohn’s disease and worries the therapy suppressing his immune system could leave him more susceptible to contracting the virus.
“I would hope there would be an understanding (from the NBA) if someone didn’t feel comfortable coming back that you’d get a pass,” he said recently. “Just because you may look like the picture of health, some people have issues you can’t see.”
Malenda Meacham, alias Bongo Lady, isn’t sure when she would feel comfortable attending a game at FedExForum. And sounding like the attorney/part-time judge she is, she won’t overstep her jurisdiction and tell the Grizzlies they should or should not want to finish the season amid an ongoing pandemic.
“I’ll have to defer to the players,” she said.
Still, it’s also true there is something unsettling about leaving a season sort of hanging there in mid-air.
The whole sports enterprise, after all, is predicated on seeking outcomes — winners and losers of games, the organic order of the final standings, the drama of the playoffs, and the culmination of it all that comes with the crowning of a champion.
“It’s unfinished business,” said Grizzlies season ticket holder Justin Sanders. “Especially with the fact they’re the 8 seed. I’d hate it for the players not to finish the season.”
Sports returning, well, one lap at a time
The NBA season stopped cold after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. It was also then that the pandemic took on a new reality in the U.S. Subsequently, other NBA players tested positive, including Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant.
So, the illusion that the sports world could somehow exist in a vacuum was shattered long ago. As of Tuesday, May 19, there were almost 5 million coronavirus cases worldwide and COVID-19 had killed more than 321,000 people.
But as American society gradually approaches normal operating procedures, the return of sports and fans draws nearer.
NASCAR started its engines last Sunday without fans in the stands and, to the shock of many, drew higher TV ratings than ESPN’s popular documentary “The Last Dance” chronicling the journey to the last championship for Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
So, Americans were clearly starved for live sports.
Harold Byrd, 69, and president of the Bank of Bartlett, is a fixture on the front row at Tigers basketball games — and a recognizable voice to the many visiting coaches and players he heckles (absent profanity).
Byrd, who also holds season football tickets, would like to be back at the games. But he is not for rushing things. If the games can return and be televised, he’ll accept it for what it is: a consolation prize.
“I can watch a game from here,” he said of his living room, mindful that even a return to games without fans still could put players’ families at risk. “I can do that. We’d like a better solution, but if that’s the solution, I’ll be watching on TV and cheering.”
If the NBA resumes, Grizzlies fans presumably would be denied raising the roof at The Grindhouse and Meacham wonders how that would impact players.
“The playoffs are such an intensive atmosphere,” she said.
Pohlman says it’s not even just about the playoffs. If the Memphis Tigers’ home opener against Arkansas State is played without fans, it could put the game in slow-motion.
“The game experience, you feed off the energy of fans,” said Pohlman, CEO and president of Pickering Firm, Inc. “If nobody’s there for a game, it will be like a scrimmage.”
But before considering fans in the stands, there is this question: Will college students even be back on campus by September?
“I don’t think they’ll play football if they don’t have students on campus,” Pohlman said.
A way of life
Mornings at Justin Sanders’ house begin the same way. Son, Jesse, who is 2½, wipes the sleep from his eyes and says, “Go Grizz House, Daddy. Go to Grizz House.”
Since Jesse was 3 months old, it’s all he’s known. FedExForum is his home away from home. He’s used to high-fiving the other fans near him and his parents, “Uncle Joe,” the attendant posted up by the tunnel where Grizzlies players run out on the floor, and he’s used to watching the mascot Grizz (Jesse sleeps with a Grizz doll and a basketball).
But the trips downtown for games, which usually include Justin’s wife Emily and his 66-year-old father Lynn, and 17-month-old daughter Maddie, are over for now.
And believe it or not, a 2½-year-old is suffering live sports withdrawal. Jesse showed an uncommon interest in the games from the start. Being there so close to the action, from his seat just behind press row, made the experience come alive.
“We had to teach him you don’t cheer every time a team makes a basket,” his father said. “We’re not raising any Golden State Warriors fan, no bandwagon.”
Sanders says his son’s first word was “Da-da,” but not long after — based on the YouTube videos Dad shows in lieu of, say, “Spongebob Squarepants,” — came the words “Z-Bo” and “T-A” in reference to former Grizzlies stars Zach Randolph and Tony Allen.
“He doesn’t understand,” Sanders said of his son’s reaction to the games and trips to 'Grizz House’ suddenly stopping.
“Three or four years from now, I’ll be saying, 'You don’t remember it, but we couldn’t see the rest of the season.’ ”
A genuine unease
Two members of Meacham’s family are emergency room doctors. So, she’s heard the stories about how this virus plays outside the rules.
“Asymptomatic people are carrying it,” she said.
Taking the temperature of fans before they can enter the arena and requiring fans to wear masks are minimums for her to feel confident about going to a game.
“It would have to look a certain way for me to be willing to do it,” said Meacham, 50, who has a home in Hernando but also signed a two-year lease on a place within walking distance of FedExForum just before the pandemic stopped the games. “First of all, we’ve got to see our (COVID-19) numbers coming down.”
Corey Gillum is even more wary.
He stops short of saying he wouldn’t go to a game before there’s a COVID-19 vaccine, but he sets the bar high on safety protocols and worries about being part of a large crowd even if social distancing is (theoretically) in place.
“My main concern is the other people who aren’t being as responsible during these unprecedented times,” Gillum said. “I know what I’ve been doing and what my family has been doing. But it’s the other people I’m witnessing that are not as compliant as we are.
“I will proceed with caution …”
Sanders, 36, is an admitted “hugger.” So, this whole social distancing experiment is hard on him.
But because his father has diabetes, he understands the importance of being vigilant.
“My dad goes to work every day,” he said of their family business, River City Sprinklers in Cordova. “If I could put him in bubble wrap. … But he’s a grown man, wears a mask when he’s in Kroger. I get to see him every day at work, but it’s different after 5 o’clock going to a Grizzlies game. It’s very special.”
Harold Byrd beat cancer several years ago. He lives with arrhythmia even now. He also lost his good friend and dermatologist, Dr. Charles Safley, 78, to complications from COVID-19.
“He went on a cruise,” Byrd said.
And that didn’t used to be a frightening prospect.
Neither did going to a sporting event.
“So much of our population is at risk,” Byrd said, adding that he’ll personally take his guidance from White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“I consider him to be the hero of this deal.”
Sooner or later?
Life is different in big ways and small, as small as little Jesse Sanders no longer being at a Grizzlies game in the fourth quarter to hear Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
Or as Jesse calls it: “Grizz Power Grizz Song.”
Said Sanders: “He’s probably the only 2-year-old into Metallica. Not sure what that says about our parenting.”
Probably what it says is that sports traditions are handed down from one generation to another. Justin Sanders first loved going to Grizzlies games with his dad and now he loves going with his father and his son.
Memories are made around moments when Ja Morant defies gravity or Tony Allen defies logic.
And they are absorbed more deeply in person. At some level, that’s priceless.
At another level, it potentially could be more expensive than a luxury suite for anyone who contracts the virus because they dared to attend a mere game.
That said, if the games didn’t matter it wouldn’t hurt when they’re taken away. And for the most dedicated of fans, it does hurt.
The worst part for Meacham, who now goes to games without her kids, who are off to college, and who has receded from public view a bit since the Grizzlies abandoned Bongo Cam?
“Missing my Grizz family,” said Meacham, who sits with “Growl Towel Carol.” “Not getting to see and talk to them. Grizz Twitter is not as fun.”
Ultimately, every fan will have to make their own decision about when they’ll be comfortable returning. They’ll have to pick a side:
Return sooner or return later?
Miss the games and the joy that they bring?
Or delay and perhaps further mitigate the risks?
It’s an imperfect calculation.
“I respect this virus,” Mike Pohlman said. “I don’t fear it, if that’s fair to say.”
Topics
coronavirus Memphis Grizzlies Memphis Tigers Basketball Memphis Tigers Football NBA Bongo LadyDon Wade
Don Wade has been a Memphis journalist since 1998 and he has won awards for both his sports and news/feature writing. He is originally from Kansas City and is married with three sons.
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