Tigers relish the chance to focus on football during trying times

Eli Drinkwitz was hired as Missouri's head coach on December 8, 2019. On Wednesday afternoon, he oversaw his tenth practice since taking the job. That works out to one practice every 26.3 days he has been the coach. Ten days before his team was supposed to open its season against Central Arkansas, Drinkwitz has seen his players in full pads for all of four practices.

So little of Drinkwitz's time in Columbia has been focused on football. Spring practice was cut short after three days with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. SEC Media Days were cancelled, the season was altered and delayed, then fall camp was pushed back. In between, he has answered questions about racial inequality and police brutality, marched with his team through downtown Columbia to register to vote, figured out how to run a socially distanced fall camp and answered more questions about racial inequality and police brutality.

Eli Drinkwitz is a football coach and so little of his job has had anything to do with football in the last few months. That's starting to change a little bit now. Mizzou is ten days into fall camp and officially less than a month from the season opener, now scheduled against Alabama on September 26th. We can argue whether football is completely inconsequential or a distraction we all desperately need, but at least for a few hours, Drinkwitz can lose himself in a practice and do what he has always done: Coach ball.

"When we step across the white lines, it's football," Drinkwitz said. "You're locked in for the day, you're clocked in to what you're going to get done. That's the focus. We don't have cell phones, we don't have Twitter, we don't have anything but a clock, a white line, a football, some whistles and me yelling at people when they're not running."

Missouri's players have viewed the start of camp similarly. The virus hasn't gone away, we aren't yet sure that games will be played and the racial divide seems to be growing wider rather than narrowing. Hours after the Tiger players spoke to the media following Wednesday's practice, the Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic chose not to play an NBA playoff game. Other NBA teams and a handful of Major League Baseball teams did the same. The movement intensified throughout the evening. The players are aware of it all. How could they not be? But for two-and-a-half hours, they do their best to ignore it.

"Honestly, I just go with the mindset of you can only control what you can control," cornerback Jarvis Ware said. "Every time I step on that field, I just feel like I'm at home. I feel like I'm doing what I love. Whenever I'm on the football field, I can't complain."

Adam Sparks has perhaps more appreciation than most for the game. His brother, Jared, is a wide receiver at Purdue. The Boilermakers aren't practicing right now and they won't play any games this fall after the Big Ten postponed its season at least until the spring.

"My main focus was just to let him know since you all got your year back, just take that year, use that as an advantage,," Sparks said. "Use it as a redshirt year, get your body healthy. It's a year off for your body so that can be good as well."

Knowing it can be disappear has made Adam appreciate football even a little more.

"It probably got even better to me," Sparks said. "My love for the game improved because now that's all we have. Quarantine, staying at home, playing video games with your teammates. This really is our true only outlet now. Everybody fell into the game more."

What is sports' role in everything that is going on? That's a discussion to be had. There are varying viewpoints and none is necessarily wrong. The Royals and Cardinals were among the teams that played baseball on Wednesday. Dexter Fowler and Jack Flaherty of St. Louis chose not to play. The Royals never considered not playing.

"We feel what we do is a separation from what's going on in the world for a lot of people," Royals' outfielder Whit Merrifield told reporters after the game. "We feel like it's important for us to go out and do our job because it gives people a three-hour window to enjoy a baseball game and to not think about what else is going on in the world."

There's merit to that. There's merit to what those who chose not to play are doing. Wednesday's cancelations almost certainly won't be the last. The discussion will continue, certainly to the objection of some. Missouri does not practice today. It will return to the practice field on Friday afternoon, another couple of hours in which the Tigers can put everything else aside and play a game.

"I have no idea what's going on in the world," Drinkwitz said. "I just coach ball. Our coaches coach, our players plan and it's fun. God, we had fun today. We had a lot of fun."

The rest of it is all still there when the Tigers leave the field. They hear it, they discuss it and, as Drinkwitz said, "My football team wants to be part of the solution." They want to play football, too. It's what they do and right now it's a welcome respite.