SEC conference governors, coaches and athletic directors are using their parenting skills in an effort to coerce childish conduct into selfless behavior.
Offer a pacifier to the inconsolable infant, and maybe the caring parent can appease the crying and the crocodile tears.
The leaders of our beloved football dynasty are using their Dr. Spock-inspired skills along with their parenting and grand-parenting instincts in a last ditch search for whatever might be the lowest common denominator of good sense and reason and which might appeal to a multitude of our bare-faced friends and neighbors in SEC states.
The college football decision makers are not actually attempting to place pacifiers in the fans’ mouths, but rather they are attempting to suggest a harmless, fabric rectangle should go in the fans‘ pockets, so that these loyal consumers of college football, and all of the happiness which it brings to us every season, may finally have the lightbulb go off in their collective head.
Once said lightbulb shines with LED brilliance, fans may realize that placing masks over their faces, when indoors, for brief periods of time, may protect others, flatten the curve, move the meter and mitigate the virus spread to a degree which would enable college football to return to our lonely, isolated and anxious lives.
Coaches train athletes, but, in this instance, the coaches are coaching the fans.
So be a fan, listen to your coach and carry a mask.
Place it over your face when you are around others, remove it when you are not, and maybe, just maybe, even at this late date, you can be part of the return of SEC football.
If you insist upon receiving something of value to yourself before you will offer a gesture of value to others, then SEC leadership has offered you a pacifier. And they are free.
Go VOLS!
Michael Mallen, health, safety and environmental attorney