For many people, in many different facets, ‘life as we know it’ is on pause right now. The global pandemic of COVID-19 is fundamentally, if hopefully only temporarily, changing the way that we go about our daily lives as the virus rips through communities and takes a toll the measure of which we can’t yet say.
At a minimum, it has forced the majority of us indoors, both for our own sakes and for the sakes of all of those around us. Not just for those more prone to being infected, and more susceptible to getting a severe case or suffering complications, but also for the frontline medical workers who are risking their lives to fight this, including our own Melanie Friedlander. Feel free to go out of your way to give her a thanks for what she’s doing, by the way, if you haven’t yet.
Meanwhile, those fortunate enough to be able to work from home, or who even ordinarily work from home, are trying to retain some semblance of normalcy in their lives even with the confinement that is necessary from the social distancing guidelines. One way that Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Steven Nelson is trying to retain the normalcy of his routine is by continuing his workouts.
“About a week ago I just went out and bought a bunch of workout stuff from the local sports store down the street”, he told Missi Matthews for the team’s website, from his Arizona home. “Just all the essentials that you need. I just work out right here in my backyard every day. It’s been working, so whatever you can do to stay in shape. Sometimes I go for a jog. I’m in Arizona, there’s a lot of mountains, so you can go hiking. Stuff like that to keep yourself busy”.
Nelson was a big free agent signing for the Steelers last year and made a formidable starting cornerback tandem with Joe Haden. Between the two of them, and the addition of free safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, they helped to reshape and redirect an ailing secondary, turning it into one of the top units in football.
Around this time last year, Nelson would be getting to know his new teammates, and they would be spending time together, bonding on and off the field. Now they can only reach each other over their technological devices for the time being.
Meditation is also an important part of his life, he told Matthews, and he has turned to that during these times. He even suggested that it has helped him to cope with the mental aspect of dealing with the enforcement of social distancing.
It’s unknown and currently unknowable when we might again see anything that looks like football. There is pessimism as to whether or not there will be any semblance of OTAs. There is still hope that training camp may be unaffected, but only time will tell on that front.
