Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

On my drive to Des Moines on Wednesday morning to cover West High in its Class 4A quarterfinal at the state basketball tournament a guest joined the national sports talk show I had on the radio.

The topic – Could the upcoming NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament be cancelled over concerns of the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

“Wow.” I thought to myself. “Could you imagine?” I vividly remembering saying out loud, shaking my head as I pulled onto the I-235 exit in Des Moines.

It was 9:10 a.m. (I remember checking the clock, the West High game was at 10:30 a.m.).

In less than 36 hours what once seemed unfathomable was a reality. 

By the time I hit eastbound I-80 Thursday evening to return home following Clear Creek Amana’s 3A state semifinal game the landscape of sports had been dramatically altered. 

Sports had simply stopped. 

The NBA, NHL, MLB and just about every other professional sports league had suspended play.

The NCAA winter sports championships, wrestling, mens and womens basketball – cancelled. All NCAA spring sports seasons wiped out by the national pandemic.

The Iowa High School Athletic Association had already announced fan restrictions for all Friday’s games at the boys state tournament. Only 100 people per team were admitted on the final day of the tournament.

There was no talk radio on my drive home Thursday evening, instead my phone rang constantly.

Friends, family, colleagues all wanting to discuss what had happened or what I thought would happen next.

“There is no playbook for this,” I remember a colleague saying. “What do we do, now?” 

For everyone the last few days have been……(insert your own adjective here).

Strange. Surreal. Unsettling.

Shocking? Stressful? Gut-wrenching?

I’m a busy body, so my reaction to it all was to just keep working.

That’s what I do when I get uneasy.

“O.K. I gotta stay busy, I’ll just work my way out of this,” I tell myself when my mind can’t process anything else.

I started working at about 6 a.m. on Friday. I watched Clear Creek Amana win a thriller in the 3A consolation game, (Kudos to the Clippers by the way but there will be time for more of that in other stories), I watched all the championship games at the state tournament.

On Saturday morning I went back to work.

That’s when it hit me.

I opened up three consecutive emails from area coaches of spring sports. In my quest for normalcy I was already hounding spring coaches about preseason survey sheets.

Each email had a very similar ending.

“Hopefully, we are able to have a spring sports season,” each coach wrote.

I leaned back in my chair and took a deep breath. No amount of focusing on work was going to change what I already knew was coming.

Sports were stopping. 

The whirlwind has continued the past 24 hours.

At the recommendation of the governor many schools have announced four-week closures, the IHSAA and IGHSA have mandated a four-week suspension of spring sports.

Another odd 24-hour span in what has been an unprecedented stretch.

For the first time since I started doing this nearly 20 years ago, sports have stopped. 

Sports is a very small part of this entire situation, I understand that. The health and safety of all is and should always be the top priority.

If you are reading this column for insight or information on the virus itself you’ve come to the wrong place. I admit all of this is well over my head.

I’m not here to give my two cents on what sports should or should not be played in the coming weeks or months either. There are much more informed and intelligent people than me to make those decisions and I trust their leadership.

I’m just telling my story because, sports are a large part of my life, after all sports are my livelihood.

And because that’s what we do at Your Prep Sports – we tell stories (at least that's how I explain to my kids what I do when I'm not at home or in my office) and that’s what we will continue to do over the next several months is tell YOUR stories. 

Even with teams unable to hold organized games or practices for the foreseeable future there are stories to be told about the athletes, teams and coaches in the area and Your Prep Sports will continue to do that.

Sports may have temporarily stopped but from what I know about the coaches and athletes in the Your Prep Sports area its not going to slow them down one bit. 

‘Turning off my brain’ as my wife calls it, can be hard for me and sometimes that’s a bad thing but I’m hoping it turns into a positive in the coming weeks.

I have a lot of ideas that I'm going to work on over the next few weeks that includes some projects and stories that I believe our readers will enjoy.

I’m just going to keep working.

That’s what I’ve always done when I’m not sure what else to do so that’s what I’m going to do now – keep working. Because I know that is what all the coaches and athletes in the area are going to keep doing.  

Hopefully everyone keeps reading (and stays safe).

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