SPORTS USA TODAY ❚ MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2020 ❚ 5C
nine decades when life came to a stand-
still. Similarly, it was a virus that forced
young Bobby Bowden into a lockdown
in his home in Birmingham, Alabama.
Bowden was 13 when he was diag-
nosed with rheumatic fever. The year
was 1943, the height of World War II.
Bowden was bedridden for one year,
about six months of that forced to lie on
his back.
There weren’t many ways a 13-year-
old in 1943 could be kept entertained
while confined to his bed.
Radio. Books. Magazines.
Forget cellphones, social media,
streaming and any other devices teen-
agers have been able to access these last
three weeks while finding ways to enter-
tain themselves as their world has been
in an upheaval. And televisions were
not staples of the American household
in the mid-1940s.
Bowden’s life for one year as a teen-
ager consisted of reading and listening
to the radio. His reading choices were
The Rover Boys, a series of books pub-
lished between 1899 and 1926 but still
popular in Bowden’s teen years; and Life
Magazine.
His radio options included Bob Hope,
“He came on Tuesday nights”; Jack Ben-
ny, “The Lone Ranger,” the Birmingham
Barons minor league baseball team and,
of course, Alabama football.
“There were a lot of adventure stories
on the radio,” Bowden said. “Radio was
good because you could visualize what
was happening. You couldn’t see it, but
you could make it up.”
The news was dominated by World
War II. Bowden kept up with the war by
reading Life and listening to reports on
the radio.
“My granddaddy lived with us,” Bow-
den said. “Granddaddy was German. I
think he had relatives on both sides. He
never missed listening to that war. He’d
come into my room with the radio and I
listened to it, too.”
Bowden became fascinated with
World War II and has visited war sites in
Europe many times. He once retraced
the war from Omaha Beach to Battle of
the Bulge and climbed a Sherman tank
in Normandy, France. He has talked
about how studying great military lead-
ers shaped his coaching career.
Bowden can empathize with what
kids are facing now, having to social dis-
tance and stay at home during a global
pandemic, but ...
“We didn’t have everything they
have,” he said. “It’s amazing what you
can do now in your home.”
Bur during a war that killed more
than 400,000 Americans and disrupted
families and lives across the country,
sports for the most part continued unin-
terrupted, though many sports legends
such as Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson,
Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio and Bobby
Jones took leaves to serve in the war.
Not even a world war paralyzed our
nation – and the world – like the co-
ronavirus.
“I’ve never seen things shut down
like this,” Bowden said.
Bowden was allowed out of bed after
a year, but he could not exercise or do
anything strenuous because his heart
had been compromised.Finally, after two years, he was
cleared to resume activities, except for
one thing: He was not allowed to play
football, so he joined the band and
played the trombone.
Finally, after two more years, Bow-
den was on the football field.
Today, he has a simple routine to stayas safe, occupied and as active as pos-
sible.
“Watch the news a lot, take a walk
around the swimming pool every day,
read my emails, see what kind of news I
got, answer them,” he said.
In other words, spending a lot of time
in the house, just like he did in 1943.Bowden
Continued from Page 1C
Bobby Bowden had a 315-98-4 record (pre-NCAA adjusted) and won two national
titles as Florida State’s coach. 2007 PHOTO BY JASON PARKHURST/USA TODAY SPORTSLadies European Tour for years before
coming to America.
He thought about them all sitting at
home.
“They’ve done all the work to earn
this,” Whan said. “They’re there.
They’re at this stage. Yeah, it sucks. I
feel like we’re letting them down.”
During these unprecedented times,
Whan met with the media for the first
time via a Zoom video call. Earlier on
Friday, his team had released a revised
schedule that puts the LPGA back in ac-
tion on June 15. The tour has been on ice
since mid-February, feeling the brunt of
the cononavirus earlier than most due
to the Asia spring schedule.
“We were COVID before COVID was
cool, I guess,” Whan said, “because no-
body really knew what coronavirus was
back in January when we first started
talking to China, Thailand and Singa-
pore about it.”
Back then, when a health minister
told Whan that his tour might be put in
quarantine if someone at the tourna-
ment site tested positive for coronavi-
rus, Whan thought there might be a
translation issue. Isn’t quarantine a mil-
itary thing?
“He goes, ‘No, no, we would actually
put you in a hotel for two weeks and
then just check temperatures and make
sure no one gets sick,’ ” Whan recalled.
“And I’m thinking, can you imagine the
LPGA being quarantined in a foreign
country?”
Now the word “quarantined” is a part
of the global conversation.
One year ago, Whan was boasting to
his board about how recession-proof he
thought the tour was because of its
global diversity. Lightning should’ve
struck then, he said, because the idea of
a global economic shutdown never en-
tered his mind.
The very thing that fueled the LPGA’s
rapid growth these past 10 years might
be what ultimately slows down the
tour’s recovery.
Whan was part of a meeting via
phone with President Donald Trump
on Saturday afternoon that included
commissioners of all the major sports
leagues.
Whan said he talks to a formalized
task force in golf every couple of days.
The pandemic has actually brought the
game’s leadership even closer. He
wouldn’t mind being the first tour, or
even sports league, to host an event,
provided that three things are true:
❚1. Local government and gathering
restrictions were in the tour’s favor.
❚2. The health guidelines where
they’re playing were in their favor.
❚3. 75-80% of the players could get
there.
Whan estimates that 35-40% of hismembership is overseas right now.
Part of the reason he announced that
four more events are being postponed
and one, the Pure Silk Championship at
Kingsmill, had been canceled, was to re-
lieve the anxiety of players and caddies
who were concerned about getting back
into the U.S.
Gemma Dryburgh played twice this
season before heading home to Scot-
land for the indefinite break. She set up
a net in her garden to be able to hit balls
after the golf courses in her area closed
two weeks ago.
The new schedule release, she said,
at least gives a more realistic date to aim
toward.
“I think one of the hardest things
about this situation is that it is hard to
motivate yourself when you have no
idea when we will play again,” she said.
Azahara Munoz is hunkered down in
Florida and grateful that her family back
in Spain remains healthy. She’s eager to
get back on tour, of course, but only
when it’s safe for everyone.
“Not just when it’s good for us,” she
said.
As of now, there are four canceled
events on the LPGA schedule: three
events in Asia and Kingsmill. Whan said
there will likely be more. It’s possible
that title sponsors will partner up for
events later in the season. He doesn’t
want to fill every open date on the calen-
dar in case he needs to move another
major championship.Right now, the U.S. Women’s Open
has moved to December. It could be the
tail end of the season, or if summer
events get wiped out, Whan could intro-
duce a wrap-around schedule that goes
into 2021. He’s calling it the “year of the
asterisk.”
The scenarios seem endless. Some
have fans, some don’t. Limited hospital-
ity. Multiple dining rooms or media
rooms to cut down on crowd size. Safety
measures can increase the costs.
“We’ve had a few sponsors say to us,
if you need me in 2020, tell me where
you need me,” said Whan, “and if I don’t
fit, tell me that you just need me to be
back in 2021.”
It’s an ever-changing puzzle, and
Whan, the compassionate, tireless, out-
side-the-box-thinking commissioner
who turned around the LPGA, won’t rest
until he no longer has to worry about his
players on his way to the gas station.
But even then, he sees the bigger pic-
ture.
“I’ve said this many times: My desire
to play golf has never been higher,” said
Whan. “My worry about my desire get-
ting in the way of what’s right has to be
just as high.
“We want to play. Don’t get me wrong.
And my players want to play, and I think
if you said to them, let’s go play, they’d
be there before I got there.
“But we can’t – while we want to be a
force of good, we can’t be a force of set-
back, either.”LPGA
Continued from Page 1C
our sports back. To be able to obsess
over trivial things, like whether the As-
tros should be stripped of their 2017
World Series title or who’s more deserv-
ing of NBA MVP honors, Giannis Ante-
tokounmpo or LeBron James, rather
than these stark decisions of life and
death that now consume us.
Instead of getting used to doing with-
out sports, each day brings a raw re-
minder that makes us feel their absence
more deeply. The Final Four was sup-
posed to be Saturday night. The Masters
was to begin Thursday. In two weeks,
James should have been starting his
quest for another NBA title, this time
with the Lakers.
“Sports weren’t designed for this. The
whole concept of our nation wasn’t de-
signed for this,” Trump said during the
briefing. “We have to get back. We want
to get back soon. Very soon.”
Before you start planning those tail-
gates or looking for your foam fingers
and face paint, however, know that this
isn’t a matter of Trump decreeing some-
thing and it magically becoming so. You
need look no further than all of the other
grand pronouncements he’s made
about the global pandemic to know that.
In January, Trump decreed that the
United States had it “totally under con-
trol. It’s one person coming in from Chi-
na.” In early February, he pronounced
that COVID-19 would be gone “by April,”
that it would “miraculously” go away
with warmer weather. Later that month,
he said the disease would simply disap-
pear one day, “like a miracle.”
Last month, Trump said the United
States had “tremendous control” over
the virus. And that he hoped to have the
country “opened up and just raring to go
by Easter.”All of that is complete hogwash, of
course.
As of Saturday, there were more than
300,000 cases and 8,000-plus deaths
in the United States, according to Johns
Hopkins, and we are not close to reach-
ing the peak.
There are no proven treatments, anda vaccine is at least 12 months away.
There still aren’t even enough test kits to
tell us exactly how many people are in-
fected.
To pronounce some arbitrary date for
when the NFL or any other season
should begin is both naive and disin-
genuous.
“I’m not anticipating that happening
in this state,” California Gov. Gavin
Newsom said after hearing Trump’s
comments about the NFL beginning its
season on time with fans in the stands.
Fortunately, it will be people who rely
on science and facts making these deci-
sions, and they will not be bullied into
doing something that’s not safe.
“As long as we’re still in a place where
when a single individual tests positive
for the virus that you have to quarantine
every single person who was in contact
with them in any shape, form or fashion,
then I don’t think you can begin to think
about reopening a team sport,” Dr. Allen
Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, told
NFL.com’s Judy Battista on Thursday.
“Because we’re going to have positive
cases for a very long time.”
We all want to know when we’ll get
our sports back because it means life
will have returned to normal. Even a
date gives us reason to hope, a light at
the end of this very dark tunnel.
But we’ve seen in the last couple of
weeks how dangerous blind faith or
misplaced optimism can be. It has cost
lives, and we can’t afford it.
Sports will return when the health
experts say so, not the president.
Contributing: NBA writer Jeff Zillgitt
and NFL writer Jarrett Bell.Armour
Continued from Page 1C
President Donald J. Trump and first lady Melania Trump were at the College
Football Playoff national championship game Jan. 13. KIRBY LEE/USA TODAY SPORTS