KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The flags of the 14 SEC schools flapped in the breeze Thursday evening above Fieldhouse Social on what, under normal circumstances, would have been the first day of the NCAA Tournament’s first round.
Perhaps the flags should have been flying at half-mast.
Instead of pouring beers for hoops fans Thursday (March 19), Fieldhouse Social closed the doors indefinitely to its popular sports bar on University Commons Way.
A day later, all Knoxville bars and restaurants were ordered closed to dine-in customers amid social distancing efforts as America battles the coronavirus pandemic.
The first Thursday of the NCAA Tournament normally turns sports bars like this one into hot spots. Fieldhouse Social installed a new 10-by-16-foot LED TV screen earlier this winter with March Madness in mind.
Then, last week, the games stopped.
There will be no NCAA Tournament and no sports of any kind for the foreseeable future.
“We’re right on the edge of campus, and you have a university with no students, and a sports bar with no sports,” Fieldhouse Social manager Rodney Lee said.
Sports are part of the lifeblood of this community and others like it across America. It’s hard to drive down a street in Knoxville and not see a Vols flag or license plate border or an orange bow on a mailbox.
Not having sports impacts Knoxville’s economy. It also affects its psyche.
“I am worried about sports fans from a psychological standpoint, because a lot of sports fans really do need this fuel. It fulfills their life,” said Paul Finebaum, host of the popular “Paul Finebaum Show.”
Perhaps no one has a better thumb on the pulse of SEC sports fans’ mental state than Finebaum. A Tennessee native and UT alumnus, he talks with fans across the South on his four-hour show that airs five days a week on the SEC Network and ESPN Radio.
Finebaum has heard the tone of his callers’ voices change as coronavirus dominates the news cycle and sports disappear from the calendar.
“At first, there was some anger about all the games being canceled, especially the spring sports,” Finebaum said. “That quickly went to a level of confusion. And now, I think we’re in a level of almost psychological disorientation.”
WHAT’S HISTORY OF SPORTS SHUTTING DOWN?
There hasn’t been an across-the-board sports shutdown since 9/11. The terrorist attacks came on a Tuesday morning.
Major League Baseball paused for a week. NFL and college football teams did not play their games that weekend. Tennessee’s scheduled rivalry game against Florida was moved to December, and the Titans’ game against the Bengals shifted to January.
“The difference was, we knew we would play the next weekend,” said Mike Keith, a Titans radio broadcaster since 1998.
Now, there’s no real timetable for sports’ return.
The earliest that some pro leagues hope to come back is mid-May. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said Wednesday he’s hopeful the college football season will be played.
No one knows for sure.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the resumption of games gave folks a reason to congregate as sports fans - and as Americans.
Now, government officials are encouraging people to stay several feet away from each other for their own safety and the safety of others.
“I think the shutdowns are unprecedented in the force and duration,” John Thelin, a University of Kentucky professor focusing on higher education and public policy and author of “A History of American Higher Education,” said in an email.
“In addition to (the) 9/11 comparison, I go back to an earlier era - what the sports world and related entertainment and dining was like in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Chilling and somber. An obvious difference is that eventually the nation, including the American public and universities, resumed their traditional activities - and recovery. But it was a forewarning.”
Tennessee has played college football in every season since 1943, when its season was canceled during World War II. Numerous college football programs did not field teams that year. The Vols men’s basketball team also did not play the 1943-44 season.
Professional sports continued during World War II after President Franklin Roosevelt wrote the “Green Light Letter” in 1942, encouraging baseball to continue.
Sports appeared headed for an extended shutdown after Secretary of War Newton D. Baker issued a “work or fight” order in 1918, ordering all draft-age men in non-essential jobs to join the military or work war-related jobs. Major League Baseball played a shortened 1918 season, but the war ended that November, preventing any extended sports hiatus.
Tennessee did not play football seasons in 1917 or 1918, due to the war and the 1918 influenza pandemic. For about a month in the fall of 1918, Knoxville schools, churches, theaters and pool rooms closed after an order from the city board of health.
Today, schools are closed throughout East Tennessee. UT will conduct remote learning for the rest of the semester, with students told to stay home after spring break. Many bars and restaurants have closed indefinitely or limited their service to take-out orders.
“The fear that the 1918 epidemic engendered is similar to what we’re going through now,” said Andy Doyle, associate professor of history at Winthrop, whose expertise includes the American South and sports history.
WHAT SPORTS’ ABSENCE MEANS TO KNOXVILLE
Tennessee’s baseball team had been scheduled to host Vanderbilt last weekend, and the softball team was set to host Alabama in the first SEC home series for each team.
Under normal circumstances, thousands of fans would have gathered at Lindsey Nelson Stadium and Sherri Lee Parker Stadium throughout each team’s three-game series.
Others would have tuned in to the NCAA Tournament. The Lady Vols were expected to land a bid. The men’s team was a long shot, but this is a college sports town, and the NCAA Tournament would have dominated dialogue around town with or without the Vols’ inclusion.
It’s not just the physical community that will be affected by sports’ absence. It’s also the imagined community, said Doyle.
Scholar Benedict Anderson developed the imagined community concept as it applies to nationalism, but Doyle also thinks it’s apropos to sports.
Vols fans congregate on social media - #VolTwitter is legendary, for better or worse - and online message boards to discuss UT athletics and other sports topics du jour.
Today, those spaces are also dominated by the coronavirus.
“All of a sudden, there’s a big hole where sports once filled this place in our lives, and now it’s gone,” Doyle said. “It just adds to the sense of dislocation that everybody is feeling.”
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