This might be the most Madness we’ve seen in March in a long time. Who would have thought the biggest news in NCAA basketball tournament history would not be #16 UMBC beating #1 UVA in the first round?! As a former student-athlete, my heart aches. As the mother of a high school senior whose (final) spring sports season is up in the air, I have a pit in my stomach. As an American, I get it. It’s the right thing to do. But that doesn’t make the heartache and heart break any easier.

At each talk I give, I share the following:
I learned at 18 years old that sometimes bad things happen. I learned at 18 years old, that sometimes life isn’t fair. And I think that’s a tough lesson to learn whether you are 8, 18, or 80. Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes life isn’t fair.

A bad thing has happened: Coronavirus has ended games, seasons, and for many, careers. And that’s not fair. Is it as bad as losing a neighbor or a loved one to the virus? No, of course not. But that doesn’t make it any easier, and it doesn’t make it fair. And, as adults, we might have a greater perspective or see the bigger picture. But to these athletes, this is their world, their life, their friends, their identity, their self-worth, and their future potential. Disrupted. Gone. Right now, in their lives, this is their everything. And that’s not fair.

It is our job to help them through this, whatever “this” is. Let them be angry, let them mourn the loss of “what if,” and what might have been. But as a parent, a coach, a teacher, a citizen, let’s guide them through a really tough life lesson. Let’s guide them first with understanding, then compassion and patience.

For most of us, this will be the year ‘March Madness was cancelled.” For our student-athletes, and those who are seniors, this will be the season they never had.
But sometimes bad things happen. And sometimes life isn’t fair.