Guy Gadowsky doesn’t really want to talk about it. He would, given the choice, much rather discuss hockey.
But if Penn State’s head coach has any fatal flaw during his regular media sessions, it’s that he’s almost too honest. It’s a reporter’s dream, but an honesty that occasionally lands Gadowsky between a rock and a hard place, wanting to be honest, but also wanting to be private or protective.
So when asked how he and his family have been dealing with COVID-19, and the unavoidable truth that Gadowsky comes in contact with far more people in a day than the CDC recommends, his mind seems to race as he looks for the words that allow him to be honest while also move on to the next question.
‘My wife is, is quite high risk,’ Gadowsky says, settling on an answer after thinking it over. ‘And so when it was apparent that I was going back on a big campus with a lot of kids, we made arrangements for her and my daughter to go to the Maritimes in Canada, where the numbers are very, very low. And I actually haven’t seen them since July. So uh, so how we deal with it. We deal with it quite safely.’
The conversation moves on from there, mostly to hockey. Gadowsky is clearly not interested in diving too deeply into his own life and one is not privy to honesty if that attribute is taken advantage of.
But it seems prudent in a year when so many things have gone poorly to not assume the things which have gone well have come without a cost. Across Penn State’s campus you can find people going through difficult times. James Franklin, for all his wealth and luxury, does not appear a man to be much more than someone coaching a not very good football team through a difficult year and doing all of it without his family. He has at times, by virtue of both of these things, seemed as unhappy as any moment during his coaching tenure in State College.
Gadowsky is not far behind. His team also started 0-5, now on a three-game winning streak that has lifted spirits somewhat but has not erased the truth the Nittany Lions are dead last in the Big Ten and miles behind Minnesota atop the standings. The season might go on until March, but it might also end tomorrow. Players from Canada and elsewhere did not travel home for the holidays and there are no plans for them to do so in the foreseeable future.
It can be a grind, an endless slog of testing and quarantine. Road trips aren’t as social and home games aren’t as much fun without fans. There is the hockey, and yes Gadowsky and his team still love the game, but it has never been a job more than it is today.
All of that can add up, and the question arises: how do you remain optimistic?
‘I probably haven’t been,’ Gadowsky said. ‘I’m not one of the better ones in this program. And I’ve actually had trouble with that. I really have. But I’ve gained, I guess, motivation through the players. They have been really, really good. We have guys on our staff that have been really, really good. I’m not the right guy to ask, because I think I’ve been one of the more poor ones. I have to work really hard to be positive about everything right now. It’s, you know, I don’t know how or why, but it was tougher for me. […] I’m not great. Right now, this has been tough, but I’ve been able to do it because of the players and the positive guys on our staff have done a great job. That’s why I’m able to do it, I guess.’
It is, once again, a remarkable moment of honesty. In sports, coaches are supposed to be granite walls of confidence and strength. If there is any reason that we have become so accustomed to treating coaches like assets instead of people, it is likely because they so rarely act like people. They are rarely vulnerable, rarely human. In turn, we tend to forget that they are.
But between Franklin and Gadowsky, and likely others across campus and across the country, things have been just as hard on them as anyone else.
When all is said and done, one would be mistaken to correlate the struggles of a hockey coach to people who have lost their jobs or those who have lost loved ones. Gadowsky later said in a text message that his two sons still live with him and he is learning to become a better cook because of it. So life is hard but it is not impossible.
All the same, if there’s anything good to be learned during a year of so much bad, perhaps it’s simply the reminder that we ought to be thinking of people as people. Maybe it’s no longer assuming that status or relative wealth makes them immune to the same kinds of sadness and worries the rest of us might have.
Ultimately, that our quest for a happiness is a unifying trait between us all.
‘I love being at practice,’ Gadowsky said. ‘Like, honestly, it’s funny. My wife was talking to me this morning about ‘when you feel the best.’ I said, honestly, when we’re at practice, you know, the game is a little different with masks, but practices when the guys are on the ice and you get things going and you can get out there and glide around. I think coaches think of practices as work. And I tell you what, through this experience, practice is absolutely 100% a privilege.’
It seems unlikely that Gadowsky will talk about his family again, but as collegiate and professional sports continue to unfold in a pandemic world, the coaches and players and people around those teams might not be saving the world. That doesn’t mean they’re living in a perfect world either.
And when we try to bask in the happiness that comes with a little sense of normalcy, we shouldn’t forget that the normalcy has come at a cost.
A reminder sadness is not a contest, and we are all allowed to feel it.
