A Grip on Sports: A day for quiet reflection is even quieter due to the ongoing pandemic

A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s a quiet day. And well it should be. Quiet is perfect for Memorial Day. Reflection too. We don’t have a lot to pass along, but let’s get to it.

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• My father lied about his age and entered the Navy in 1942. Left home, saw the world and returned in 1946. Thankfully, he did, or my sisters and I wouldn’t have been here.

I have thought about such things often on the past 10 or so Memorial Days. The untold millions not only lost on the battlefields, but their offspring who never had a chance to be.

Who is to say the world wouldn’t be a better place if some Marine private had survived Tarawa and passed his genes to a child now running for national office? Or an Army medic had lived through a Chinese assault near the Chosin Reservoir. His daughter might just be working on, and finding, a vaccine for the coronavirus.

The untold stories that never unfolded on future Memorial Days. Games of catch with dad, learning how to shoot from mom, playing tennis with grandma, golf with Uncle Billy. Barbecues, parties, loves, all lost because of what happened somewhere, someplace, sometime.

We forget, though we vow not to.

My dad never did. But he also never let it stop him from enjoying the life he was able to live. In fact, it helped him appreciate it more.

When my dad finally told me the truth about his favorite officer’s death, he was in his 80s. We were talking in his car as I drove him around on one of my Southern California visits covering Washington State’s basketball or football team. A quiet conversation in a quiet place on a quiet street.

My dad told me more than once the man had died while swimming off the ship on my dad’s 18th birthday in 1943. But that wasn’t exactly true. Truth is, the officer had died while diving in one of those big suits, trying to clear a clogged sonar buoy in a South Pacific harbor, my dad and another sailor manning the lines above.

For more than 50 years my father held in the guilt, hid it from everyone, including his son. He felt responsible. An Ivy League graduate left his soul in a little boat outside a tropical island and a life that should have been wasn’t. On my dad’s birthday. It was easily the worst scar my father brought home, worse than the ones caused by shrapnel or a skin disease.

My dad told me the officer used to talk about why he was there while they did their work. What he thought they were fighting for. But dad admitted he didn’t really understand. My dad, born in abject poverty to a single mom with six children, had different motivations. My dad wanted, more than anything, to get back home. To play pro baseball. To get married. Have kids. Own a home. Be a success. Have a life. Dreams he realized to varying degrees. Dreams his commanding officer would never fulfill.

The question of why that July 10 unfolded the way it did was never answered for my dad. Decades later he still was trying to figure it out. But he was smart enough to know that something other than a life had been lost that day. A future. Maybe many futures. His commanding officer was one of more than 400,000 who died serving their friends, families and country in that war. My dad wasn’t. He had his life. He had his family. He knew how lucky he was.

The day he told me the story, he wept. It wasn’t the first time I had seen my father cry. But the depth was never touched. Not even close.

And that is what Memorial Day is about. A day to remember not only the lives left on battlefields around the world, but the lives that never were. How one loss causes others, even in the living. All lost because of man’s cruelty to other men. Lost because sometimes people say enough is enough. A stand has to be taken. Principles have to be defended.

When that happens, people die. And their story ends. Or it begins in our memories. And our Memorial Days. Passed on from generation to generation. Remembered.

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WSU: Local collegiate tennis programs in the area, including Washington State and Eastern Washington, earned some prestigious awards recently. That’s all part of our weekly local briefs column. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12, the Boulder newspaper has put together a series of stories to honor the retirement of one of Colorado’s most successful coaches, Ceal Barry. … USC has had some recent turnover at the quarterback position.

Gonzaga: Around the WCC, transfer Matt Haarms is almost out of quarantine and ready to start his BYU adventure.

Preps: We missed this yesterday but pass along a Seattle Times’ story on football’s chances for a fall season in Washington.

Shock: OK, we could have also put this under an EWU heading, but because Ryan Collingwood’s story focuses mainly on Raul Vijil’s time and successes with the Shock, we link it in this section. If you like looking back to the not-too-distant past, this story is for you.

Golf: We had intended to skip the golf. But Tom Brady’s early struggles roped us in. Everyone likes watching a meltdown, right? And we stayed, off and on, until the finish. It was fun. Competitive? Not really. But enjoyable. Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning won on the course, but those of us who laughed for a few hours on Sunday afternoon were the real winners.

Seahawks: We have a couple of Hawk stories to pass along, including some thoughts on Antonio Brown and the roster as it is currently situated.

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• As we said, it’s quiet in the sports world today. Part of it is the holiday weekend. Part of it is the pandemic restrictions. Only one thing is certain for me. It will all pass. Sometime. … By the way, we did miss not having the Indy 500 yesterday. That is all. Until later …