Georgia Tech Smashed A Coronavirus Shaped Pinata After Beating Nebraska

2020 has been a really strange year for everyone, as we’ve all had to come to terms with life in the midst of a pandemic that, nine months in, is only getting worse in the United States. In the sports world, the attempt to carry on seasons has been quite difficult, with the need to either enter a bubble environment or accept the fact that there will be various stoppages throughout the season as teams deal with internal outbreaks and have to pause activities.

College basketball is among the sports that have returned and teams are trying to navigate their way through the first major indoor sports season since the pandemic started. Unsurprisingly, they’ve encountered numerous cancellations and bumps in the road. Far less importantly, but still something that matters to coaches and players, is the impact the pandemic has had on their ability to carry on certain team traditions and celebrations.

For example, Georgia Tech’s men’s basketball team celebrates road wins by stopping at a gas station and getting the entire team snacks and candy, something they can’t really do right now as they try to limit exposure to the outside world as much as possible. After beating Nebraska on the road on Wednesday, Tech coach Josh Pastner decided to get his team some candy a different way, by lobbing out a coronavirus shaped pinata — yes, like, a spiky, virus shaped ball — and had them smash that to get the candy inside.

Honestly, I’m shocked this is the first time I’ve seen a coach have his team break a coronavirus pinata, because that is something I could very easily have seen a college football coach doing to help his team “visualize beating the virus” this season or some other extreme Football Guy reasoning. Instead, it’s Pastner’s way of having his team continue a tradition in a pandemic, and now I have to wonder how many of these pinata’s he’s ordered and if this will continue on an every road win basis this season or if he’ll just eventually shift to just handing out candy from his cooler of Airheads that he apparently keeps close by.