In case you haven’t noticed, Donald Trump whines a lot.
He throws himself on the floor, kicking and screaming until America can’t take it anymore and his administration shuts him the fuck up by doing something reprehensible.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
This is the story of America since January 20, 2017.
Because of this, Trump has come to realize that if he bitches and moans enough, he’ll eventually get what he wants because nobody wants to deal with a screaming toddler in the middle of Target. So in August, when he learned that college football could become the latest casualty of the coronavirus, he did what every other insufferable infant would do: cry for his binky and throw a temper tantrum on Twitter.
As previously reported in The Root:
On Monday, he tweeted, “Play College Football!” after insisting that college players have “worked too hard for their season to be canceled.” But it was on Tuesday that his Twitter fingers took a breather long enough for him to get some bold-faced lies off on national radio.
According to USA Today, during a spirited discussion with Clay Travis on Fox Sports Radio, Satan’s understudy insisted that players will have no problem battling COVID-19 due to being in “extraordinary shape,” that it “just attacks old people, especially old people with bad hearts, diabetes, or some kind of physical problem,” and that it would be a “tragic mistake” if there wasn’t any college football this fall.
Sadly, Trump’s childish antics didn’t work, and several conferences—most notably the Big Ten and Pac-12—pulled the plug on their seasons this fall citing “the health, safety and well-being of their student-athletes.” But undeterred, Trump kicked and screamed even louder; even going as far as to get Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren on the phone and wail at the top of his lungs about how he wants ice cream for dinner.
Warren held his ground and said, “You better take your ass to bed before I really give you something to cry about.”
But a funny thing happened along the way. Advancements in rapid testing and cardiac MRI screenings for myocarditis opened the door for the Big Ten’s return sooner than later, and as ESPN reports, Trump’s incessant whining finally worked: the Big Ten has reversed its decision and will resume play in October.
From ESPN:
The Big Ten will kick off its football season the weekend of Oct. 24 after the league’s presidents and chancellors unanimously voted to resume competition, citing daily testing capabilities and a stronger confidence in the latest medical information, the conference announced Wednesday morning.
Also of interest, instead of the usual 12 game season, each team will attempt to play eight games in eight weeks with the Big Ten championship game scheduled to take place on December 19. If this sounds like a terrible idea, it is, because it leaves zero wiggle room to reschedule games in the event of a coronavirus outbreak—which is pretty much a guarantee at this point.
The conference is working on allowing the families of players and staff to attend both home and away games, but fans will not be allowed to attend any football games this season.
Part of the reason the Big Ten feels so confident in moving forward with its season is that its coronavirus testing is currently so refined that they’re able to detect players who have contracted the virus prior to them even being contagious.
“Everyone associated with the Big Ten should be very proud of the groundbreaking steps that are now being taken to better protect the health and safety of the student-athletes and surrounding communities,” Dr. Jim Borchers, head team physician at Ohio State and co-chair of the return to competition task force’s medical subcommittee, said in a statement. “The data we are going to collect from testing and the cardiac registry will provide major contributions for all 14 Big Ten institutions as they study COVID-19 and attempt to mitigate the spread of the disease among wider communities.”
As to be expected, Trump had plenty to say on the matter and will presumably take credit for the Big Ten’s return—much like he did when he tripped and stumbled upon something that we had never heard of before until he took office: Juneteenth.
“I want to congratulate Big Ten football. It’s back,” the Commander-in-Tweet said during a press conference on Wednesday. “I want to, in particular, I’ve been dealing with them, thank commissioner Kevin Warren for the great job he did. We’ve been working with him for a while [...] I called the commissioner a couple of weeks ago, and we started really putting a lot of pressure on, frankly, because there was no reason for it not to come back. And Kevin went in and worked very hard. I want to thank the players, the coaches for working along. And they wanted it very badly. The players and coaches, in particular, the parents also.”
I’m shocked and amazed he forgot to thank himself.
Oh, wait. He did:
So yes, the Big Ten will, in fact, resume play this fall and all eyes are on the Pac-12 to see if they’ll reverse course as well—which at this point appears to be imminent.
“I want to recommend that the Pac-12 also get going because there’s no reason why Pac-12 shouldn’t be playing now,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday. “Pac-12, you’re the only one now. Open up. Open up, Pac-12. Get going.”
Get going or he’ll throw himself on the floor again, I suppose.