The Alligator Army Weekly Open Thread, Vol. CVII

So how are y’all holding up?

Almost two months into what’s basically been a self-imposed quarantine — with a side of my body really not letting me get out into the world all that much — I find myself far more emotional and significantly more lonely than I previously was. And I’m someone who was emotional for a variety of reasons and generally pretty lonely — I live alone, and not physically near a lot of my friends — even prior to social distancing.

I don’t really have high hopes for a return to prior normalcy, or to the salvaging of sports in the fall. Anyone excited by, say, the Korean Baseball Organization still putting on games might want to consider the extraordinary circumstances of that return and the dramatic differences between the state of coronavirus control in South Korea and in the United States. (Anyone frustrated currently by a lack of sports and generally by any moment when sports and politics are seen to intersect might consider that the way coronavirus response and relief are being handled is inherently political, whatever your political views are; whether you don’t like that sports were cancelled, welcome the returns of things like UFC and NASCAR, or are anxious about going to sporting events in crowds given the recent history of such things, it’s impossible to deny politics are part of sports in this moment.)

And so I’m in the same sort of tenuous position that anyone working in sports media is right now: We all know that without actual sporting events, our jobs — no matter how low-paying — are a lot less “necessary” to companies’ bottom lines, but without sporting events, there’s really not a lot to write and create content about if you’re contractually obligated to do so, and some of the more outlandish ideas are slightly beyond what our daily (or quasi-daily) gigs allow us to do.

I still have ideas. Last week was Uniforms Week around SB Nation, and while I didn’t get anything up then, I do still have uniform-related content coming at some point soonish. I’ve been fooling around with Twitch streaming and have some video game-related content in the works, too. As my physical mobility (hopefully) improves, I’ll be better able to unearth the vast assortment of Gators-related books in my possession, and might be able to finally get to some Alligator Army Book Reviews, something I’ve long wanted to do.

And we’ll have things like recruiting — silly as it is to worry deeply about recruiting in the middle of a pandemic — and the futures of Andrew Nembhard and Tre Mann to talk about. The NCAA will continue to stumble towards actually compensating players while foolishly attempting to restrict their movement. There’s stuff to talk about — it’s just academic, really, and abstract in ways that cuts on grass or passes on parquet aren’t.

The people who make money from sports also very much still want to sell you tickets. (You should probably not buy those tickets.)

I hope you’re doing well, and that whatever I and we do end up writing around these parts serves you in some way during what I think we’ve all collectively realized are not the most fun times in human history. But I also welcome any and all coping strategies. Y’all watching something great on Netflix or YouTube? Reading any good books? Picking up hobbies?

Let’s talk about all that.