President Trump Won the Big 10 Primary, and Arguably More

President Trump scored a touchdown - and a field goal - when he brought his influence to bear on the Big Ten to resume playing football this fall.

It’s a big win for sports fans, the players themselves - and for the health of the country, which desperately needs relief from the sickness of fear.

Along with most of the country, football - college and professional - has been sidelined by Coronavirus lockdowns. But a political line of scrimmage - between red and blue states governors - threatened to keep college football locked down.

Or at least a big part of it. 

The Big Ten schools are also located in the states where the electoral college numbers will matter most on election day. Whoever wins the Big10 schools, wins the Presidency. 

The Big Ten conference - which includes Winsonsin, Minnestota, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State - announced in early August that the fall season would be postponed, perhaps cancelled altogether - and that the decision “will not be revisited,” in the words of Commissioner Kevin Warren.

Probably not coincidentally, the Football Lockdown dovetails with the general lockdowns of life in states with the most left-wing governors, including most notoriously Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer - who has treated business owners who dare to open their doors in defiance of her decrees more severely than the “peaceful protestors” burning businesses down in states all around the country.

She sicced the cops on gyms - and she also  came down firmly - and gladly - in favor of locking down the Big Ten - and by doing so, crippling the entire college football season, since a season without the Big Ten is like the NFL without the NFC East.But she couched it morosely, in the language of "the science" - which has become whatever politicians such as Whitmer say it is.

“The fact of the matter is, the Big Ten made a decision based on the best epidemiology," she said just a couple of weeks ago, in the wake of Warren's announcement. "They are research institutions learning from the best and making decisions, and I think we've gotta respect the decisions they made to keep their student-athletes safe and families safe."

But then came a different decision - based on the facts - prompted by the president. Who made several calls - both publicly and privately - to let the games proceed. 

After having been called by players - and players' parents - who were getting sick of being sidelined.

Publicly, he called the lockdown of the Big Ten “disgraceful” and Tweeted that it would be “tragic” if the season got cancelled - in part because for college athletes, there are only four seasons. Suspending one means cancelling one. Which means depriving student athletes of a fourth of their playing time - and possibly a lifetime of playing - if, as a result of not playing, they never get a shot to play pro football.

Anyone good enough to make the cut to play for a Big Ten team has spent years working to make that happen. And for most who get as far as the Big Ten, those four years will be the only years they ever get.

Because it is even harder to make the next cut - into the NFL.

The decision to take that away from the players should not be lightly - or politically - taken. People’s lives are in the balance - but not because of the virus. As the president noted, almost no school-age people are getting sick - much less dead; nationally, only 8 percent of all "positive" tests are in the school-age bracket.

And as the CDC has conceded, people who aren’t sick can’t spread sickness. 

But the media has been spreading fear, which has been used by blue state politicians such as Whitmer to bully compliance with dictatorial measures.

"These football players are very young, strong people, and physically, I mean they're physically in extraordinary shape," the president correctly noted.

Therefore, Whitmer is right about the “best epidemiology."

She just decided to ignore it.

Until the president threw a red flag. Or rather, made several private calls to Warren which culminated in a dramatic reversal last week of  his “will not be revised” decision. Beginning Oct. 23, the Big Ten will play - and along with it, a healthy slice of normalcy returns to American life.

No one knows exactly what the president said to Warren to convince him to change his mind. Some reports say Trump pointed out that other games are on - such as professional tennis and stock car racing - and that no one has died or even gotten sick.

The White Houses also supposedly offered to provide enough Corona test kits to assure that no one's playing who isn't healthy.

But the bottom line is what the president himself said: There is no reason for collegiate football to be cancelled.

That fear cannot be allowed to shut down life.

There's too much politics behind the lockdowns - of football and otherwise. And that it's time to get back to normal.