Category: News, observances, history

Called on account of COVID-19-the sports we won’t be watching this year

“Olympic competition has been canceled only three times in the 124-year history of the modern Games, and all three instances were because of global conflict (1916, World War I; 1940 and 1944, World War II)

Were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic, we would soon be watching the 2020 Summer Olympic games on television or, for some of you, in person.

Dr. Aletha took the photos in this post at the United States Olympic Training Center at Colorado Springs, Colorado in 2015.

By now you know that the the International Olympic Committee and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe jointly announced the postponement of the 2020 Olympics . Now the games are scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8, 2021. The Paralympic Games will occur from August 24 to September 5 ,2021.

“Olympic competition has been canceled only three times in the 124-year history of the modern Games, and all three instances were because of global conflict (1916, World War I; 1940 and 1944, World War II). But never before has a Games been pushed back a year, an enormous undertaking for a global event with more than 11,000 athletes from around the globe. “

espn.com

And in other sports..

Major league baseball started its shortened season late. Basketball players are practicing in a “bubble” at Walt Disney Resort (where despite quarantine several players have tested positive for COVID-19). The NFL introduced a “mouth shield” for possible use to protect players from infection. Pro soccer teams are playing to empty stadiums where the referees can hear every critical word the players and coaches mutter. No fans are following pro golfers around the greens.

I follow my local pro and amateur sports teams, although there will likely be fewer of those to watch this year also. I admire athletes’ dedication to their sports, and especially those who achieve special recognition by overcoming great odds to get there. 

bronze globe supported on the backs of 4 athletes
bronze globe supported on the backs of 4 athletes

Water wait 

Reading a recent issue of Sports Illustrated (a rare occurrence) I discovered open-water swimming which I didn’t know was a sport, much less in the Olympics. Ashley Twichell could swim before she could walk.

For thirteen years she has worked to earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic swim team and at 31 years old, she would have been the team’s oldest rookie Olympic swimmer  since 1908 , if this summer’s games had not been cancelled.  And next year, at 32, she will be the second oldest woman to ever swim on the U.S. Olympic team.

“I’ve always taken it year by year. And now I get even one more year than I was planning on.”

Ashley Twichell, swimmer

Standard of caring

Hayley Wickenheiser, retired ice hockey player, earned seven world championship golds.   She played for Canada in five Olympics. She won four Gold medals and one Silver medal. She was admitted to the Hockey Hall of Fame. She even played on a Finnish men’s hockey team. She deserves the unofficial title of history’s greatest female hockey player.

Haley sees the coronavirus pandemic from a different perspective; she will soon be Dr. Wickenheiser upon finishing her final year of medical school. She plans to practice emergency medicine.

Hayley serves on the IOC (International Olympic Committee) Athletes’ Commission, a peer-elected board that advises the Olympics’ governing body. In March 2020, she became increasingly concerned about the fate of this year’s Olympic games  as the world became engulfed in the COVID-19 nightmare.

So she took to Twitter demanding the IOC make a definitive plan to give direction to the thousands of athletes in limbo about the games. Her tweets prompted other organizations to make similar demands and by late March the games had been officially cancelled. 

Her concern came not just as an athlete. She said, 

“I couldn’t sit silently anymore, given  what I was seeing in the emergency rooms and hearing from my friends in hospitals across the country.” 

As a student she is not expected or allowed to provide direct care to coronavirus patients. But she stays busy studying, working out, giving hockey tips through Instagram, and using Twitter to encourage social distancing. 

“The calmer we stay, the more we isolate from each other…if we do our part at home and on the front lines, we have a chance to combat this as a mass group of humanity.” 

With Dr. Hayley and her generation of future physicians, I think the world’s health is in good hands.

TOKYO 2020

Fifty-seven years* after having organised the Olympic Games, the Japanese capital will be hosting a Summer edition for the second time. The Games in 1964 radically transformed the country. According to the organizers of the event in 2021, the Games of the XXXII Olympiad of the modern era will be

“the most innovative ever organised, and will rest on three fundamental principles to transform the world:

  • striving for your personal best (achieving your personal best);
  • accepting one another (unity in diversity); and
  • passing on a legacy for the future (connecting to tomorrow)”.
and while you’re here read this post about another historic Olympic event

Winning on the water-a book review of Boys in the Boat

In Boys in the Boat, the United States Olympic Rowing team of 1936 beat incredible odds to win the gold medal. But the meat of the book explores in detail how each man came to be in that boat, especially Joe Rantz.

one more thing

If the title of this post puzzles you, here is an explanation of “called on account of rain”-I didn’t know all of this either.

exploring the HEART of athletes

Thanks for joining me to meet these athletes. I hope you will explore them further and gain new inspiration for your own athletic journeys; we all have one, in one way or another.

Dr. Aletha

Click this affiliate link to learn how you can get inspired with Aaptiv workouts for fun and fitness.

find sports illustrated at barnes &noble

A Doctor, a Lawyer, an Immigrant, and a Flag that Still Waves

This post reflects on the significant contributions of two figures in U.S. history: Francis Scott Key, who wrote the national anthem while grappling with his ties to slavery, and Dr. William Beanes, whom Key rescued during the War of 1812. It also touches on the symbolism of the American flag and its association with national identity.

updated July 23, 2025

When I originally wrote this post, I wanted to highlight the role that two physicians played in United States history. Part of that history includes the role of a lawyer who is better known than they are but has a dreadful legacy.

The man credited with writing our national anthem was a slave owner.So I have updated this post with links exploring his character.

June 14, Flag Day

While we consider July 4 to be the birthday of the United States, June 14 is the birthday of the United States flag. Although June 14 is observed as National Flag Day it is not a federal holiday, so banks don’t close and no one gets a day off work.

But we enjoy it anyway, wearing red, white, and blue, and displaying the flag at homes and businesses. Some patriotic organizations pass out small flags or flag pins to wear.

American flag waving at a Vietnam Veterans Wall replica
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall replica

The United States flag is often called the “Star-Spangled Banner”, after our national anthem, which is more about the flag than about the nation. I don’t know if this is true in other countries, but we tend to closely identify our flag with our national identity; maybe that’s one reason there has been such heated debate about the way people acknowledge and respond to the flag publicly.

A Lawyer and a Doctor

So that brings us to a true story involving a doctor and a lawyer that almost sounds like the opening line of a joke. Today doctors and lawyers sometimes bear the brunt of jokes or criticism, but in this story they played a pivotal role in American history. It’s a story that most people know, but maybe not the whole story.

The Lawyer, Francis Scott Key

Francis Scott Key’s role in our national anthem is well known-he wrote it. A lawyer, he was on a rescue mission during the War of 1812, and spent a harrowing night watching the British assault Ft. McHenry near Baltimore, Maryland.

The next morning, when he saw the red, white, and blue flag still flying over the fort, he was moved to write a poem. That poem became “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Francis Scott Key had a conflicted relationship with slavery. Key defended enslaved individuals seeking their freedom as an attorney and believed that “by the law of nature all men are free. The presumption that even Black men and Africans are slaves is not a universal presumption.”

Despite any objections Key had to the institution of slavery, he did take part in its proliferation. Key most likely purchased his first enslaved person in 1800 or 1801, and by 1820 he owned six enslaved people. His family owned slaves at the time of his birth, and at least one of his children owned slaves after his death.

National Park Service website

What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life

(affiliate link)

The Doctor, William Beanes, M.D.

Dr. Beanes’ role is less well known. Dr. Beanes was the object of Mr. Key’s rescue mission. Dr. Beanes had been captured by British soldiers and imprisoned on a ship. Local citizens arranged for Francis Key to go to the ship and negotiate his release.

It is believed the British were persuaded to do so because Dr. Beanes had previously treated injured British soldiers. Whatever the reason, the “elderly” (age 65!) doctor was freed and he, Key, and John Skinner, watched and waited out the battle on a near-by truce ship.

Birth of an Anthem

“Interestingly, he( Key) made no effort to promote this composition. In fact, he did not even sign it. He merely showed his lyrics to a few friends, who then circulated the work.

For several decades, Key’s name rarely appeared alongside these lyrics, which — by the time of the Civil War — had become arguably America’s most beloved song.

It wasn’t until 1931 that a congressional resolution signed by President Herbert Hoover made “The Star-Spangled Banner” the U.S. national anthem — an anthem that never would’ve existed had a lawyer not been asked to help out a doctor.”

(TIME.ORG)

The Immigrant, James McHenry, M.D.

Even Ft. McHenry has a medical connection- it was named for a physician, James McHenry.

James McHenry emigrated from Ireland to the American colonies in 1771. He studied medicine with Dr. Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia and immediately volunteered as an Army surgeon when the Revolutionary War began.

After serving in the medical department in Massachusetts, New York, and at Valley Forge, he became an aide to General George Washington and subsequently an aide to the Marquis de Lafayette.

President Washington appointed McHenry Secretary of War and he continued in that post under President John Adams. Baltimore’s Fort Whetstone was renamed Fort McHenry in his honor.

(Spiegel, A.D., Kavaler, F. History: James McHenry, MD: Physician, Patriot, Politician and Poet. Journal of Community Health 28, 281–302 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023990125827)

Exploring the HEART of Health

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