It was a year ago Thursday that the sports world stopped.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
The NBA postponed a regular season game between the Utah Jazz and the Oklahoma City Thunder that night.
Sometimes it feels like our global nightmare started last week. Sometimes it feels like the coronavirus is as old as my teenaged son.
It was also the day after Joe Biden grabbed a commanding lead in the race to be the Democrat nominee with primary wins in Idaho, Michigan, Missouri and Mississippi.
It was, as NPR reminded me, the day Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual abuse. And the stock market dropped 1,200 points.
It was also the day that Tom Hanks revealed that he and his wife, Rita Wilson, had coronavirus.
Even with Dr. Anthony Fauci accurately telling Congress on this day last year that "Bottom line, it's going to get worse," and with Hanks' famous face giving an image to the invisible virus, the devastating impact on the world of sports made the pandemic all too real for a lot of us.
Postponing an NBA game was the first domino, followed by conference basketball tournaments. March Madness was silenced. The effects rippled out from there.
Sports competitions and events halted by the coronavirus quickly underscored the risk and threat for all of us, and it really put the virus into a bigger scale than most originally believed.
Heck, around these parts, it was just two days later that the school year was done in Hamilton County.
What a year, huh?
The pandemic launched video-game racing and sports betting on table tennis. It made cardboard fans commonplace and the sound of sneakers in empty, bubbled NBA venues oddly comfortable.
We missed sports, and then we didn't as viewership declined because we found other things to watch and stream. ("Tiger King," anyone?)
We got reconnected with who Michael Jordan was; a lot of folks learned he was a better player and a much worse person than anyone remembered.
We celebrated when baseball started and we crossed our fingers when many national sports pundits preached and tried to shame us for wanting to try to play football.
We prayed for the sick and cried for those who died.
And, while it was a whirlwind year, it still feels as if our new normal has been here for as long as any of us can remember.
What a year indeed.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com.
Jay Greeson