4759 Game of the Weak

 It looks like the box the rest of the buildings came in. But it's really a monument to the real reason its hometown exists.

(NewRoses, PA) -- The stadium wasn’t exactly full. There were about 105-thousand people crammed in.  So, not a sellout. At least not in capacity.  But there was a sellout of another kind, a sellout to virus deniers and superspreaders.

 

College football is the engine of this otherwise listless region and there was plenty of pent-up demand for action this past weekend.  They had to mostly close that stadium down last season.  Terrible news for the beer concession. Worse news for the people who live to see bunches of fit young men try to inflict pain on other bunches of fit young men while plausibly denying that’s what they do.

 

The school itself is a lumbering giant, famous for being well-known and with the country’s largest chunk of living alumni, also known as potential donors.  A lot of wills to want to be a part of.

 

One hundred five thousand seems like an awfully big crowd to watch what was essentially a nothing game no one expected the home team to lose -- which it didn’t.  In a normal season, with this kind of opponent, the street scalpers would be paying you to take the leftover tickets.

 

So… the swooning, cheering masses came from all over.  They came to yell, to fill up empty hotel rooms and empty pitchers and glasses in the region’s second most important and industry, bars.

 

That’s why a game gets scheduled to start in late afternoon.  Can’t go home afterward. Maybe also you have to buy breakfast. The Athletic Department would like you to think TV broadcasters determine game time.  Not true. It’s the inn keepers.

 

The first home game of the season is generally a warmup.  And this was that.  But what was warmed besides stadium seats was the Coronavirus.  You get that many people that close for that long a time, you get what the pundits and medics call superspreaders.

 

It wasn’t as big as the motorcycle fest in Sturgis.  But it wasn’t the Bridge Club, either.  Or the Saturday night poker game.

 

Covid 19 is airborne. One precaution no one seems to have taken was disinfecting the back of every neck in all but the last row… and even those if there were standees.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021