The Iso: Spice Adams

The Players’ Tribune is introducing a new series called The Iso. With so many of us keeping our distance from each other in a variety of ways, we decided to ask some of our favorite athletes to share how they’ve been dealing with life in the Covid-19 world, and how they’re spending their time away from their sport.

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It feels like
No, actually, it feels like we’re on the set of I Am Legend. This is unreal. We’re a bunch of extras on a movie set.

I went to Costco — and you know how at Costco you can buy in bulk? They had no milk, no eggs. It was ridiculous. I’ve never gone to Costco and not been able to get milk and eggs. It was unreal.

When they shut the NBA down, that’s when I knew. That’s when I knew it was real. Then, once an actual player contracted it — once he tested positive — it was like, Dang. You know, you watch different things here and there, and you think only older people get it. Then you see a well-conditioned professional athlete got the coronavirus? It was like, Dang. You mean to tell me this guy who runs up and down the court for miles — and how good his immune system is, his cardiovascular is, and he got it? I was like, “Aw, man!” It don’t matter: Anybody can get it now. And then his teammate got it? Maaaan.

It feels like we might be at the end of the world if it ain’t no sports. How do you turn on ESPN and nobody’s talking about LeBron, nobody’s talking about nothing?

My day starts like this: I wake up, brush my teeth, throw on some clothes, and work out. I go work out in the mornings — and if I work out in my day, I’m good. Everything else seems the same as long as I get my workout in. I box — I do drills for 30 minutes, and then I do 30 minutes of boxing. But I’ll do 10 minutes of jump rope before all that, and then try to help my wife with the kids and make some breakfast.

After dinner, we finally get the kids to bed so we can watch some guilty pleasure on TV. We’ll watch some of her “not kid appropriate” reality TV shows like 90 Day Fiancé. She be watching that stuff, though. (She’s currently got me watching this show Love Is Blind. You seen this)? I usually watch HBO at night, this show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

And then, like a movie, it all starts over the next day. It feels like the longest bad dream ever. We just need to hit the reset button on 2020 — as a whole. I don’t know, man.

Right now, I’m trying to see whether Chicago is going to shut down. Maybe it’s a matter of when. It’s probably going to happen. I mean, San Francisco shut down, so I kind of figure all of the major cities are going to follow suit at some point. I’m watching the news nonstop, just to keep abreast of what’s going on — see what’s poppin’. There’s breaking news every couple of hours.

Twelve, 10, eight, and seven — those are the ages of my kids. One boy, who’s the oldest, and then my girls. We sat them down and talked about it, but they pretty much already knew. In this day and age, sometimes it feels like my kids are way ahead of me. People would have to bring you information when I was coming up. Now, kids can ask Siri anything. We’re just so much more connected. They can look things up on their iPads. They probably know more about the virus than I do.

They shut down my kids’ school about a week ago. It was a Friday. They had school that day, but a lot of schools in the surrounding areas had started shutting down. Next thing you know we get the call: We have to come get them from school early. So, my days are mostly just trying to find something for the kids to do to keep everything feeling normal for them. We end up doing a lot of schoolwork, watching TV. Not too much video games and electronics, but just trying to make it fun for them somehow, and not make them the same food every day. We about to get up on Jenga today. Might get up on some UNO — might break some hearts and trust.

The Internet’s been crazy. I heard Erykah Badu is supposed to do something this weekend from her house. Yesterday was crazy because I was on Kevin Hart’s IG Live when he was working out, and then later in the day somebody was like, “Yo why don’t you get on D-Nice’s Live?” So I hopped on there with him.

I’m at the point now, where I have to laugh to keep from crying. I’m still going to get stuff out — like videos — when I can. Get some jokes off. The more relatable the jokes are right now, the better received they’ll be, I think. Like, you see somebody cough and you’re like, “Whoa! Don’t be doing none of that around me, now,” you know? “Might think you got that ’rona.”

I might go ham today with the video. I think I might do a bit with my barber because the quarantine has messed up the fade. My hair is ridiculous. My hairline — I don’t know where it begins and where it ends. And mad bushy. Crazy.

Wash your hands, y’all. But in the process of that, wash your body as well. Body just stankin’, but your hands smell clean? Suspect. Get everything else, in all the crevices, you know? Keep that hygiene up to date.