Mulligan

I don't play golf. Unless it's miniature. But I do understand the concept of a Mulligan. It is the version of a "do-over" brought to us through various origin stories about a golfer named Mulligan who was given, or chose to take, another shot. Circumstances beyond the control of the player, inside our outside the game, have given an agreed chance to make good on a moment of confusion or weakness.
The NCAA has decided to offer an additional year of eligibility to student athletes whose seasons were cut short or eliminated by COVID-19. Even as the smoke clears from the first NFL "virtual draft," one has to wonder how the lack of March Madness affected the stock of basketball players who were denied the chance to shine in front of all those pro scouts. As the nation's Virus Wizard Dr. Anthony Fauci suggests that sports might be allowed to continue without fans in the seats, we start to wonder what the point is. Professional sports are, by their very nature, spectator sports. Recently there have been experiments, such as having professional wrestlers square off against one another in an empty arena. If The Edge falls in a ring and nobody's around to hear it, does The Edge really fall? At least we have video games, the pinnacle of socially distant sports.
All of which remains to be seen. Could we just skip the 2020 football season? It's difficult to imagine crowds piling into stadiums in the same way they did just a couple of months ago. A number of people have related to me over the past few weeks how they reacted with mild panic to seeing groups of humans nestled together in old TV shows. We are becoming a world of Enochlophobes. And maybe that's a good thing. 
As an elementary school teacher, I have spent great chunks of time herding kids into lines and manageable pods to move them from place to place. Lately I have been spending much more time herding kids to monitors for their Zoom meetings. And wouldn't you know it, the "president" thinks we might need to get all those kids back into classrooms sooner rather than later. The man who made George W. Bush look like a reasonable Head of State "strongly urged" governors to consider reopening schools before summer. What could happen?
Sorry, I think we're going to give the kids a Mulligan on this one.