SULLIVAN COUNTY -- In the triage of relative losses wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, clearly there are far more weighty consequences than the loss of high school sports. But when we incur a loss of any kind, it is something we personally feel and whether it is seen as greater or lesser than any other loss is not something we are bound to consider in the moment.

Losing something or someone important in our lives makes us keenly aware of the void that is left behind. Human specialist Mark Groves frames it this way: “We need to lose things in order to learn not only their value, but also their weight. Loss is a brilliant teacher that way. It can show us what is important simply by creating space where it once was.”

For players, coaches, parents, fans and community members, the magnitude of that empty space which sports normally fills is impossible to calibrate. For the legions of high school athletes dealing with the latest postponement of winter's low to moderate sports including indoor track and skiing to a new start date of January 19 and the even hazier possibility of high-risk sports including basketball, cheerleading and wrestling, the sense of loss is made even more palpable by the cancellation of last spring's season and the postponement of the fall season until March.

For high school seniors, long awaiting this year for their last hurrahs of their sports careers, this is particularly tragic. Realistically speaking, the prospect of playing any sport in these uncertain times is at best, a hope that while many people still cling to, they do so with an ever-increasing sense that no such thing may come to pass this year.

Considering the number of people who have died, who are gravely ill, who have suffered economic hardship or who have lost their jobs or businesses, it is clear that whether a young person gets to play another basketball game, run a mile race or try to ski his or her fastest time on a downhill slalom course pales by comparison to the aforementioned impacts.

That said, to be young and in high school playing a sport that you love is often the epicenter of a teenager's universe. Not only does it provide a healthy, structured outlet, requires academic competence to be eligible, offers an arena for physical conditioning, strength and stamina, more importantly it provides life-altering experiences that have enduring resonance for years to come.

Sports engagement forges character, teamwork, builds leadership skills, enhances cooperation, teamwork and adaptability to changing circumstances including setbacks that may include injuries, defeats or other forms of adversity.

Sports is a crucible from which those who take its lessons seriously emerge changed for the better. The impact of the entire spectrum of the experience cannot be understated. In that context, the loss of sports becomes a growth inhibitor, something people are not apt to calculate as they focus on the larger effects of the pandemic. In the complex life-altering world of this pandemic, it is yet another layer that only time will clarify the loss therein. This has been a year many of us wish we could forget but will long remember. For athletes, it will be a year they will sadly frame under the heading of “what might have been.”

For this sportswriter/photographer, the past 18 years of telling the stories of young men and women on the athletic fields, courts and tracks have always been global in nature. I have sought to emphasize not only the heroics of athletes, their enviable performances and character, but to constantly point out the life-altering lessons embedded in not only their experiences, but in our viewing of them.

Sports is the theatre of life and sadly in these days, we desperately await the rise of the curtain on the next act of the play on that uniquely, inimitable inspiring stage.