Steelers News: COVID-19 can take our sports, but it can’t take our hope

The Pittsburgh Steelers 2019 season is officially over. After finishing the year 8-8, the Steelers, and their vast fan base, has another long offseason awaiting them. Just because the games are done doesn’t mean we stop providing you with features, commentary and opinions to tide you over throughout the offseason!

Today in the black-and-gold links article we take a look at how the coronavirus might stop our sports, but it can’t take our hope.

Let’s get to the news:

• The Pittsburgh Steelers, and every other professional sports team, is on hiatus with the COVID-19 pandemic running rampant. However, it shouldn’t take away our hope.

Tim Benz: Coronavirus may be ruining sports world. Does it have to ruin our hope?

By: Tim Benz, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

I’m no longer simply bored with the coronavirus-induced sports desert of the moment.

I’m now in full-blown depression.

My blues extend well beyond sports and into just about every avenue of how people have politicized and polarized the pandemic.

It started with the chorus of people insisting sports “weren’t important” at a time like this. Extend that trend to those grousing that NFL free agency shouldn’t be allowed to start amid the virus’ grip. Then it bled into the bleating from those such as Adam Schefter insisting the draft be postponed.

This past weekend, that sensation crested with the reaction to President Donald Trump’s conference call with sports commissioners updating them on the prospects of when they may be able to get their leagues back to action.

The headline grabber was that Trump said the NFL should start on time in September.

Guess how a lot of folks on Twitter, in other political offices, and those in the sports media took that news.

To read the full article, click HERE (Free)

• What will sports look like if/when they do return?

John Steigerwald: When they return, sports should be made-for-TV events

By: John Steigerwald, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Let the games begin. Or not.

President Donald Trump held a conference call with the commissioners of all the major sports leagues Saturday and told them he is hoping people can start filling stadiums and arenas by August or September.

That’s good news for the NFL and college football, but, if it takes that long, you can forget seeing any NHL, NBA or MLB games in a 2020 season.

Maybe the NHL and NBA could figure out a playoff system that would carry over into the planned start of the 2020-21 season, but what kind of a season could Major League Baseball expect to have if no games could be played until August or September?

California Gov. Gavin Newsome threw water all over any plans NFL teams in his state might have of playing there in August or September.

“I’m not anticipating that happening in this state. A well known athlete just asked me — a football player — if he expects to come back, I said, ‘I would move very cautiously in that expectation.’ … (Our decision), at least here in the state of California, will be determined by the health experts, will be determined by our capacity to meet the moment, bend the curve and have the appropriate community surveillance and testing to confidently determine whether that’s appropriate, and right now I’m just focused on the immediate, but that’s not something I anticipate happening in the next few months.”

To read the full article, click HERE (Free)

• Everyone is doing their part, including Mike Tomlin’s wife.

Doing her part to help

By: Teresa Varley, Steelers.com

Like the rest of us, Kiya Tomlin, the wife of Coach Mike Tomlin, has been in ‘work from home’ mode for the past three weeks, doing her part to practice social distancing and protecting her family and others from COVID-19.

But she hasn’t been sitting around idle.

While the fashion designer isn’t able to go to her Kiya Tomlin Work/Shop studio in Etna, her and her staff are hard at work at home on a new fashion design.

Protective masks.

”A couple of weeks ago, before Pittsburgh really had any cases, and it was just becoming a known problem, Rachel Maddow had retweeted something from a hospital system in Evansville, Indiana that said they had a shortage of masks and were asking for all home sewers to jump in because they had a shortage of masks,” said Tomlin. “Someone forwarded it to me. I thought I have people that are sitting home I am paying who aren’t working, so I reached out to them and asked them if they wanted to do it. They were like yeah, of course.

”I wanted to do it for Pittsburgh and started to reach out to friends to see who had connections to see what we could do with these. I have friends who are in the medical field, they aren’t in Pittsburgh anymore, one is a nurse and her husband is a surgeon. They were on vacation and I asked her, and her husband said if they aren’t an N95 mask then they almost aren’t worth it unless you do something with a filter because it’s not going to do anything. I was like darn. But Indiana was asking for people to make them. The CDC was then telling people if you don’t have a mask, use a bandana. I was like these are better than a bandana. I said I would make them anyways and send them to where they were needed.

To read the full article, click HERE (Free)

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