“It’s a fluid situation.”

That will be a term that becomes synonymous with the year 2020.

In other words, “schedules are subject to change,” or the way I’ve been looking at it, “don’t bother getting your hopes up, because it’s all going to change anyway.”

That’s about all that can be said for not only what the world of sports has had to deal with during this pandemic, but also all of our lives in general. It has affected our jobs, our vacation plans, our church events; everything.

Guess what?

It doesn’t look like it will be over any time soon.

Last week, on Tulsa Beacon Weekend (the radio show) and in this column, ORU President, Dr. Billy Wilson, pointed out that the Summit League had pushed back the start of fall sports seasons until Sept. 23. Well, just a couple days later, ORU’s conference announced that all fall sports were postponed for now, and will be moved to the spring semester.

However, that’s still a fluid situation.

My heartfelt sympathies are with the media relations staff at ORU, and all of these other smaller schools, that will have to try to staff the end of men’s and women’s basketball, the start of baseball season, and now men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball, all at the same time. There aren’t enough full-time athletic staff members and student interns at ORU to run three sports at one time, let alone five.

What if there is a basketball game, soccer match, baseball game and volleyball match all on the same evening in February? I can only do the P.A. announcing at one of those games. Then you have to have a broadcaster at basketball, soccer and baseball, you need someone to run the scoreboard and clock at each game, at least one person to do stats, and someone to report substitutions or other stats. That’s not counting the fact that at least two students are needed to run the promotions on the court, or the field, during the timeouts.

Basically, ORU basketball games involve at least 12 people to handle all the duties needed to operate a game. The other sports require about six or seven. So, if there are four games in one evening, that means at least 30 people are needed to staff all the sports events going on at the same time.

Then again, this is still a fluid situation.

Last weekend, the St. Louis Cardinals returned to action in Major League Baseball, after sitting out two-weeks because several players tested positive for COVID-19 after spending a night at a casino. At the same time, the final two games of a weekend series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates was postponed because a member of the Reds tested positive.

More than 30 MLB games have now been postponed because of players testing positive, with most of those players on the Marlins and Cardinals rosters. Their postponed games have also affected several other teams, who were scheduled to be the opponent. To make up these games, MLB has had to schedule several double-headers, which it hasn’t done in many years, in leu of split (day-night) double-headers. However, what difference does it make since there aren’t any fans in the stands, so getting two gate admissions is not an issue, and they’ve cut the double-header games to seven innings each.

Will MLB be able to make up all the missed games, and when will the Reds return to play, is not yet known.

It’s still a fluid situation.