For the last ten weeks I've done my part to quarantine and follow the CDC guidelines for social distancing and the rest. Still, I sit in bed and talk with my wife about our favorite meals and the excitement we'll feel when we order that first cocktail or favorite bottle of wine to celebrate the end of this pandemic and return to something like normal. There is a future to look towards and I see it in food.
I spend a lot of time thinking about what to do to with the next several months of time before those moments become a reality. There is no chance that we will continue to stay in strict quarantine for more than another month, but how we act when we go back will influence the lives of our neighbors and loved ones. It's a real social responsibility.
The fight against COVID-19 isn't over and any premature celebrations will prove to be deadly for our communities and families. Moving forward we have to balance the approach to reopening, and that includes sports.
I want there to be football. I want there to be soccer, and track, and wrestling. But as much as I can envision a scenario where I can enjoy a glass of wine in a half-filled restaurant, I can't yet figure out how these athletic competitions return in the next few months.
So for now it's patience and more patience. We aren't done fighting the virus, but when we beat this thing (and we will) I think we will all look back fondly at our discipline and patience. We will become old men and women who patiently explain to our grandchildren that we buy so much toilet paper and hand sanitizer because …
You get the point. This too shall end, and we will all be back to normal in due time.
To your questions …
Wrestlers train during camp at Augsburg University in Minneapolis in the summer of 2019 (Photo/David Peterson)Q: Many colleges host wrestling camps, which will be canceled this summer. While I am sure it varies considerably by school, how much revenue can these wrestling camps generate? And how do you think if will affect the programs?
-- Mike C.
Foley: All college wrestling camps will, or should, be canceled. There is simply no way to safely conduct a large gathering of athletes this summer, much less those on campuses where sensitivity to liability is high. If there are some still proceeding as planned, I'd love to hear what protocols they established since they would be groundbreaking in sport.
Coaches earn a lot of money from camps so this is sure to make a massive impact on their personal financials. The programs won't feel significant long-term pain since this is a single-year incident and the revenue rarely goes back into the program in any large, meaningful way, but the assistant coaches tend to rely heavily on that income and its unclear what will happen if they aren't able to supplement.
Q: How do you see the wrestlers Justin Gaethje and Henry Cejudo doing this weekend in UFC?
-- Mike C.
Foley: First, I'm happy to see there be a card. I know that it's imperfect and there are some downstream consequences and impacts that weren't added in to the actuaries numbers (e.g. training partners over the past few weeks), but overall the plan laid out by the UFC is achievable and relatively safe. This isn't going to be risk-free, but I don't think it'll spark an outbreak or kill grandma.
Why? Because there is a lot of money at risk for to put on this event. The payoff for successful promotion and a successful event are huge for the company, but they are also taking precautions to ensure there aren't any additional tie-ups that pop up 14 days after the event, like a positive test.
The single event, man-to-man sports, will be the first to come back alongside larger scale sports where there is zero personal contact (golf, tennis). That will be good for our psyche, but there won't be crowds and I am a little concerned about the indication we are all clear well before we are ready to move forward as a nation.
As for the fights themselves, I think Cejudo makes a mockery of Dominick Cruz. The timing for Cruz is gone and his wrestling, while adequate in the past, won't do well when tied up with Cejudo. The biggest risk to Cejudo are the leg kicks and the fact he might not be in top form due to the virus and interruptions in his training schedule.
Uh, good luck to Gaethje, but I don't have good feeling. Tony Ferguson is just too … I don't know? Too, Tony?
Good preview here.
MULTIMEDIA HALFTIME
Top 5: Active American wrestlers
UFC 249 Countdown: Ferguson vs. Gaethje
UFC 249 Countdown: Cejudo vs. Cruz
Q: Thoughts on sumo wrestling going forward during the pandemic? Any other forms of wrestling going on across the world?
-- Mike C.
Foley: Sumo is the only form of wrestling I've seen. The traditional styles all seem to have wound down and the summer tournaments in places like Mongolia aren't going to have their outcomes determined for several more weeks. In fact, with Mongolia I'm sure there will be some wrestling, though I'm not sure about the national naadam which is held the same three days each year.
The Japanese are likely to keep sumo going as long as there is no negative press surrounding their events such as a transmission of coronavirus or complaints by competitors of unsafe conditions. That said, those more attune to the situation seem to be unsure which way the JSA will fall in determining if there will be a summer basho:
The Japan Sumo Association operates under the country's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, so the league is likely to stay the course absent a government mandate. "Though I haven't heard it said outright, I am sure the JSA is following the government's lead on this one and waiting to hear what will be done nationally before it makes a move," the proprietor of the sumo gear seller Sumo Soul wrote in an email. "The common wisdom is that though it is waffling to do so, that the government will extend, if not strengthen the restrictions put in place and the JSA will very likely follow suit and cancel the honbasho [tournament]."
For now sumo is navigating the waters well. The one critical advantage they have is the limited number of interactions per day. The athletes meet each other so briefly on the ring and since they aren't wrestling with additional people that same day there can be controls put in place to limit further transmissions. Ultimately, this is just about the perfect sport to consider going forward in that it has money to spend on the problem, thousands of years of tradition, a compliant population, brief interpersonal contact, and the momentum to keep going.
Q: Cael Sanderson's only college loss (as a redshirt) came against Iowa's Paul Jenn. Have you seen the match? Has anyone? Or has the footage been destroyed for nobody to see?! You would think it would have shown up on YouTube by now if someone had it!
-- Mike C.
Foley: This is one for the comment section!
I highly doubt there were cameras rolling at the time and if there were, I'm not sure that Cael would have been where the camera team trained their lens. At the time he wasn't Cael, but a redshirt from Iowa State who was having a decent year in smaller tournaments. Big name, but probably not getting major exposure like he would in today's climate.
As you may know Paul Jenn died a few years after school. Tough loss as his story would certainly be one that we'd all likely enjoy.
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