HEYEN: Return of spring sports embraced return of hugs

Everyone deserves a hug. As the 2021 spring sports season wound down, that's what my eyes kept noticing — embraces between teammates, between coaches, between an athlete and their coach or their family or any other combination you can think of. In the pre-pandemic world, maybe that wouldn't have felt exceptional. But after a year-plus of being told to keep our distance, those hugs encapsulated the meaning behind the return of spring sports, which concluded in Ohio last weekend at the state baseball final fours. The 2020 spring high school sports season in Ohio was the only one that will never show up in the history books. COVID-19 had become public knowledge by the end of the preceding winter season, and by the following fall, procedures existed to play with caution. Only the spring athletes learned the pain of barely beginning practice before having their season postponed and eventually canceled. Seniors had played their last games without knowing it. First-year coaches put their debuts on hold. As Edison softball coach Troy Keegan explained it, "All of a sudden, someone just took that away from us. It was like, 'What? You can't do that.' But they did." So when it was finally safe to hug one another again, people didn't wait around. Father and daughter embraced early in the season when Margaretta and Tiffin Columbian played a softball game. Scott Dickman coaches the Polar Bears, with his daughter Erica Cok in charge of the Tornadoes (with younger sister Kylie Dickman as an assistant). Dickman held his infant granddaughter after the game, too. Then as the stakes grew larger, the hugs came fast and furious. On a cold and wet Friday night in May, St. Mary Central Catholic's Mazzara Lynch sprinted over to hug her coaches after learning she'd just made it to state in the pole vault, the fourth and final spot. In those conditions, hugging for warmth wouldn't have been a bad call, either. A few days before in Shelby, Bellevue's Mason Bova experienced the sporting equivalent of the group hug as his teammates mobbed him at home plate after a go-ahead home run. Edison's Olivia Vitaz felt that, too, in a two-homer district final. The hugs were for more than just joyous moments, of course. After Edison beat Huron in a district championship softball game, Chargers pitcher Kira Appeman ran toward the Tigers dugout after the final out and embraced Kennedy Camp. Their friendship meant more than the result. Vermilion baseball was the last SBC team left standing, losing in the state semifinal June 11. After the loss, head coach Jeff Keck hugged each of his seven seniors. Huron baseball coach Dan Lindsley and senior Cole Parker had a long embrace after their season concluded. So did Edison seniors Kayla Mancuso and Mallory Perkins. You've surely heard the phrase, "A picture is worth a thousand words." How many words is a hug worth? At least that many, it seems. All the embraces mentioned here were filled with meaning — silent recollections of the most difficult practices or the off-field bonding or the inside jokes or the biggest wins, or maybe all of that at once. They certainly weren't the only ones this spring, because there are few more universal languages than hugging. Track relay team members from Perkins and Huron hugged one another after competing against each other at the Division II state meet. Norwalk's Ashton Coe and Carson Colahan embraced after winning a doubles tennis sectional title. Margaretta's Kenna Stimmel hugged the runners on either side of her after she won the state title in the 100-meter dash. With the way hugs were being handed out in the final weeks of the spring season, it wasn't a surprise those weren't Stimmel's only embraces that day. She and her 4x100 relay teammates — Jana Berg, Macyn Phillips and Olivia Saylor — huddled in celebration after that state crown. And then there was the podium hug, big sister Kassidie Stimmel and little sister Kenna, one two-time state champion having just placed a first-place medal around the neck of another two-time pole vault champ. It may have been the most awkwardly attempted embrace of the spring, Kenna positioned atop a tall podium and Kassidie grounded. But this was a season for hugging, and so with Kenna crouched and Kassidie outstretched, they wrapped their arms around each other, a few seconds that meant so much more.