‘Is it possible I have attended my last Texas-OU game at the Fair?’: Exploring the potential ‘new normal’ for sporting events

Still reeling from Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby’s statement last week about Texas-OU at the State Fair being a “Petri dish for spreading infection.” Not saying he was wrong. Bowlsby was almost assuredly right. But it’s one thing I had not pondered during the cataclysmic shutdown of sports and society the last seven weeks.

When you endure life-changing events in your personal world, you rarely consider everything that will be impacted moving forward. Things hit you days, weeks, even months after the loss of a loved one. And so it is with this pandemic, even as we feel certain segments of business starting to reopen that allow us to adopt a more optimistic mind-set about what lies ahead.

But is it possible I have attended my last Texas-OU game at the Fair?

As we see stories about the State Fair itself possibly being canceled — a devastating loss of more than $400 million for the local economy — one can hope that maybe this is a one-time event, and that 2021 will be entirely different around here.

But what will the “new normal” for sports really be like? If we are going to think differently about random handshakes, about the constant need for face-to-face meetings, what about sporting events in majestic stadiums and arenas? Bowlsby talked about the “psychology of public assembly” being altered by the coronavirus. How many of us are not yet comfortable returning to a semi-crowded restaurant or standing in lines a little too close for social distancing standards at a grocery store?

You have to clear that hurdle before even thinking about joining a crowd of 92,000 in the Cotton Bowl stands with another 200,000 patrolling the fairgrounds.

“You have to wonder if people are gonna want to fill a stadium and sit cheek-to-jowl with people they don’t know when there isn’t a vaccine,” Bowlsby said.

I hadn’t thought in these terms because, generally speaking, I don’t seek to put myself in the middle of large gatherings anyway. Covering the Cowboys from the press box is far different from being out in the stands among the 90,000. But I can think of three times a year when I don’t mind being part of the sporting crush.

One is simply attending (not covering) the U.S. Open for a couple of days each Labor Day weekend, taking the subway in from Manhattan and feeding my tennis fix. OK, let’s be honest, it’s as much for the food as anything. Best chicken fingers in the world somehow outside Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Another is huddled in the crowd with my daughter (and last year my son as well), far back from the start line of the Turkey Trot. I offer nothing that looks like running at this stage, the occasional jog to sidestep dogs on the 3-mile course being about it. But it’s a great family tradition to share on Thanksgiving.

The other, which exists mostly in memory because I don’t cover it every year, is the Texas-OU game (which is the appropriate order for listing of teams, by the way). I attended my first in 1968, a junior high kid cheering the Longhorns to a late comeback victory in their new Wishbone formation. I was there three years later, a high schooler realizing that OK, the Sooners have mastered this Wishbone thing now and Texas is in big trouble (48-27 that day).

Through the years, covering the 6-6 tie in 1976 when Darrell Royal and Barry Switzer had become sworn enemies. Oddly enough, watching Marcus Dupree lead an unranked Oklahoma team to a 28-22 upset of the 13th-ranked Longhorns in 1982 as the OU beat writer for The Daily Oklahoman.

Watching Bob Stoops pick up his first win over Texas, a 63-14 destruction that I think Mack Brown felt for years. Seeing Charlie Strong’s one shining moment, knocking off the 10th-ranked Sooners 24-17, Stoops now looking a bit past his prime in 2015.

I can’t tell you what lies ahead in this series, other than the city of Dallas has a contract that runs through 2025. Who can say for sure what that means, though, if people no longer want to fight one massive crowd just to get inside a classic old elbow-to-elbow stadium and do battle with another one?

What if in the “new normal” people considered at risk are asked to refrain from placing themselves unnecessarily in those high-risk situations? As someone who crossed the 60 threshold a few years back, one thing I can predict is I’m not going back the other direction.

As with all things in 2020, our only choice is to be prepared for something bad (I won’t say prepared for the worst, that’s simply too much) and then hope that science and reason carry us someplace not quite so bad.

But Texas-Oklahoma in five months amidst a crowded midway and a sea of red- and orange-clad corny dog chomping fanatics?

At this point, I’m thankful for the memories over six decades and simply hope we all find a way to create a bunch more.

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