Lisa Spar­row learned that Oma­ha might as well be Osa­ka. That sev­en-and-a-half hours by car can feel like sev­en-and-a-half light years, even from the com­fort of your couch.

“Fans are a nec­es­sary part of sports,” said Spar­row of her Pio­neers, who played their first 10 games in Oma­ha as part of an NHL-style “bub­ble” envi­ron­ment.  “Den­ver hock­ey, our record (3–6‑1) is total­ly because our hock­ey team thrives on the ener­gy from the stu­dents and the fans.”

She miss­es the tribe. The vibe. The way the but­ter off the pop­corn at Mag­ness Are­na tick­les your nose. The way shared col­ors turn strangers into fam­i­ly, if even for only a few hours.

“One of the rea­sons we cel­e­brate sports is because we real­ly feel like it’s a com­mu­ni­ty … we’re part of a group,” not­ed Adam Earn­heardt, a Youngstown State com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sor and author of “Sports Fans, Iden­ti­ty and Social­iza­tion: Explor­ing the Fan­de­mo­ni­um.’ “And if we can’t be a part of that group and we feel like we’re iso­lat­ed from that group, what’s the point?”

What indeed? What did 2020, for all of its iso­la­tion and unrest, heroes and hopes, teach us about sports? And its role in our lives amid a glob­al pandemic?

Spar­row learned what it was like to lose her com­pass while watch­ing the Pios lose theirs. She learned that she mat­tered. All of them did. From her seat, two rows back of the glass, to the gang in the rafters. Every last lung and larynx.

“I mean, they get their ener­gy from it,” Spar­row said of the Pio­neers. “That’s been miss­ing. You can tell that in their play.”

Spar­row, 52, can tell bet­ter than most. A ’94 DU grad, she’s had sea­son tick­ets to the Pios for 15 of the past 26 years. She’s also a sea­son-tick­et hold­er for the Bron­cos and Rock­ies, as well as a food­ie with an abid­ing, unabashed love of the Front Range restau­rant scene. COVID’s basi­cal­ly tak­en a chain­saw to her enter­tain­ment-and-din­ing cal­en­dar, every week, since St. Patrick’s Day.

“I like to joke that I’m a ‘pro­fes­sion­al spec­ta­tor,’” Spar­row chuck­led. “I’m a girly-girl, but I love my sports. And yeah, it’s real­ly kind of sad. It used to be a great thing to go to Coors Field on a summer’s night and the hock­ey games on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day night. What do you do now?”

We learned just how small and insignif­i­cant sports were in the grand scheme of life. Espe­cial­ly in a coun­try try­ing to come to grips simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with a pan­dem­ic, race rela­tions and a con­tentious pres­i­den­tial elec­tion year.

Then again, one man’s real­i­ty check is anoth­er man’s escape. In some ways, sports was nev­er more impor­tant. The way it cre­at­ed snap­shots that for­ev­er bind us.

Jamal Murray’s tears of per­spec­tive in Orlan­do, the Nuggets’ star matur­ing as a play­er and as a human being on the same stage. CU line­backer Nate Land­man throw­ing his body around in Boul­der, will­ing the Buffs to a 4–0 record from out of nowhere, only to watch that body freak­ish­ly fail him, cru­el­ly, on the last leg of the race.

The way it remind­ed us of what we took for grant­ed. One anoth­er, mostly.

COVID-19 took lives and liveli­hoods. The rest of us had to cope with the con­se­quences and absur­di­ties of a new nor­mal that forced us apart, lulled us to sleep, then pushed us apart again.

We’ll look back. Of the loss­es, espe­cial­ly the human ones, we’ll weep. Of the lighter moments, we’ll shake our heads.

The way the coro­n­avirus forced the Den­ver Bron­cos to suit up a wide receiv­er to play quar­ter­back. The way it remind­ed us that life isn’t a movie script, and that the NFL is still mar­ried, inex­tri­ca­bly, to its bot­tom line.

The way it showed the luna­cy at the top of Major League Baseball’s food chain and the hypocrisy among Pow­er 5 col­leges and their con­fer­ences, where tails wag the dogs forever­more. The way it ripped Col­orado State’s foot­ball sched­ule in half. The way it stripped CU of a chance to play at USC —  twice. The way it con­vinced the Pac-12 to make the Buffs dri­ve a foot­ball equip­ment truck halfway to Los Ange­les for nothing.

Was it worth it? Did we need the diver­sion … at any cost? What did we learn?

THE COACH

Dave Logan learned that dom­i­nance nev­er felt so blast­ed … exhaust­ing.

His Cher­ry Creek Bru­ins foot­ball team went 9–0, won the Class 5A state title for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive sea­son and extend­ed their win­ning streak to 23 con­sec­u­tive games.

“From a foot­ball stand­point, from a coach­ing stand­point, it was the most dif­fi­cult year of my career,” the long­time prep foot­ball coach, voice of the Bron­cos and radio talk show host told The Post. “Because you nev­er could set­tle in. There were so many unknowns and unex­pect­ed things that would pop up.

“It just was a very, very dif­fi­cult sea­son. I was so pleased that these schools were able to nav­i­gate through this as best they could and that these kids got a chance to play. And that’s the real­ly crit­i­cal com­po­nent: That they got a chance to play (and) the seniors got a chance to expe­ri­ence one last (fall) sea­son play­ing football.”

For coach­es, though, every morn­ing felt like a roll of the dice. COVID-19 had the pow­er to stop a sea­son, re-start it, and, on any giv­en day, blow through a program’s depth chart like a tor­na­do across the Heartland.

“After about a week (into the pan­dem­ic), I said on the air, ‘This looks like the zom­bie apoc­a­lypse. This is what it feels like before you get aliens fly­ing out of the sky,’” Logan sighed. “That’s what it felt like to me. Very strange, dis­ap­point­ing, depress­ing and, at times, chal­leng­ing. Peo­ple I know have expe­ri­enced a lot of highs and lows — and some­times, those are in the same day. So, you try to keep things in per­spec­tive, and you feel for those who have lost loved ones or lost their work.

“It’s been an ardu­ous year. It real­ly has.”

THE PLAYER

Zach Kapush­ion learned that the grass isn’t always green­er. Even from 1,400 miles away.

“I knew that, even if we moved, COVID could stop foot­ball in Geor­gia,” for­mer Broom­field High School quar­ter­back Zach Kapush­ion explained via email. “We talked about all of the sce­nar­ios and had to weigh the good with the bad.”

For much of the sum­mer, Kapush­ion was prepar­ing to help the Eagles, the 2019 Class 4A run­ners-up, make anoth­er run at a state title. But when the Col­orado High School Activ­i­ties Asso­ci­a­tion ini­tial­ly elect­ed to punt on play­ing foot­ball in 2020, Kapush­ion and his fam­i­ly start­ed work­ing the phones. If he want­ed to pile up more game tape for col­lege coach­es, it would have to be some­where else.

“We very quick­ly reached out to con­tacts in a few states to see if any of them knew of high schools that need­ed a quar­ter­back,” Kapush­ion explained. “We looked for schools that didn’t have a start­ing junior or senior quar­ter­back, because we did not want to dis­place anoth­er athlete.”

A fam­i­ly mem­ber sug­gest­ed South Pauld­ing High School in Dou­glasville, Ga., 22 miles east of Atlanta. The Kapush­ions flew south to vis­it the school on a Mon­day. While there, the coach­es went over Zach’s game film and told him he would be their starter if he made the move.

By Thurs­day, the wheels were set in motion; Kapush­ion called Brom­field coach Blair Hub­bard and team­mates and told them he was transferring.

“The tough­est moment was say­ing good­bye to coach­es and friends that I cared about in order to pur­sue my own goals,” said Kapush­ion, who’d thrown for 17 scores and ran for two more as a junior. “In some ways, it felt self­ish and I almost didn’t want to play unless they could all play, too.”

Zach had an aunt and uncle who lived about an hour away. As his par­ents could work remote­ly, they joined him in Geor­gia. But pol­i­tics and sports even­tu­al­ly com­bined to sour things a bit down south.

“There was tur­moil among the coach­es and com­mu­ni­ty about me com­ing into Geor­gia and hav­ing the start­ing posi­tion,” said Kapush­ion, who lost the No. 1 job after a Week 2 set­back to North Pauld­ing. “I was not used to watch­ing the game from the sidelines.”

Mean­while, back in Broom­field, CHSAA was revers­ing course on fall foot­ball, announc­ing a sea­son that would be played from Octo­ber to Decem­ber. Kapush­ion found him­self ask­ing, inter­nal­ly: Did we make the right call?

“That was espe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult,” Kapush­ion said. “How­ev­er, in the pan­dem­ic, dif­fi­cul­ties are rel­a­tive. Some peo­ple have lost their lives or their jobs, so I always try to keep foot­ball in perspective.”

The 6‑foot‑2 quar­ter­back even­tu­al­ly won back the start­ing job, lead­ing the Spar­tans (5–5) to con­sec­u­tive wins to close out the reg­u­lar season.

“But it was not per­fect there, either,” said Kapush­ion, who appeared in sev­en games. “We had play­ers quar­an­tined at times, tick­ets to games were lim­it­ed, and our last game of the sea­son was can­celed due to COVID. That game had the poten­tial of get­ting our team to the play­offs. It was a very dis­ap­point­ing and abrupt end.”

THE FAN

Duane Wor­ley learned that base­ball can go from the most social sport in the world to the loneliest.

It’s the iso­la­tion that stuck. And stunk. Even watch­ing bad Rock­ies teams in per­son gets soft­ened some by hav­ing friends and con­fi­dants at Coors Field with­in shout­ing distance.

“I just met some great peo­ple,” explained the 85-year-old Wor­ley, who was No. 5 among the Rock­ies’ first six orig­i­nal sea­son-tick­et pur­chasers. “And you don’t have that watch­ing the TV set.”

Things over the years that couldn’t keep Wor­ley out of Coors:

• Thy­roid can­cer. (“I had 39 stitch­es, and my clamps went from the back of my ear down the side,” he recalled.)

• Valve replace­ment surgery. (“Had five stents put in.”)

Yet the coro­n­avirus man­aged to pull off what life-chang­ing surg­eries couldn’t touch.

“An oncol­o­gist sees me every six months,” Wor­ley said. “The point is, I’m 85 and a health risk. So I qual­i­fy as an All-Star if I want to go out and get COVID.”

Los­ing any base­ball sea­son is pre­cious, but nev­er more pre­cious than in the win­ter of your days. And Worley’s been under stricter quar­an­tine than most.

“My daugh­ter won’t let me even go to the gro­cery store,” he cracked.

Tele­vi­sion repli­cates things bet­ter than ever, espe­cial­ly in 4K, but some of the fin­er points still get lost from real life to the liv­ing room. In hock­ey and auto rac­ing, it’s the speed. In bas­ket­ball, it’s the size. In base­ball, it’s the ambience.

The scents. The sounds. The waves of green grass that roll, like car­pet, out to the padded out­field walls. The com­pa­ny. Worley’s usu­al seat isn’t far from the one used by Rock­ies own­er Dick Mon­fort behind home plate.

“I stay away from say­ing things (to him) like, ‘They suck,’ because it’s appar­ent,’” Wor­ley chuck­led. “In gen­er­al, I try to stay on the pos­i­tive side of the world. For instance, when Trevor Sto­ry was called up, the first year that he was start­ing at short­stop (2016), he went out and he made a cou­ple of what’s become the com­mon great play … I would learn for­ward (to Mon­fort) and say, ‘You know, we don’t miss (Troy) Tulow­itz­ki at all, do we?”

Wor­ley miss­es Blake Street. Badly.

“If this vac­cine gets here,” he said, “I will be the first in line to say, ‘Give me the damn thing, so I can go out and see the field again.’”

THE COOK

Euge­nia Mays learned how to for­give. No mat­ter how hard it was to forget.

“I learned how to be hum­ble,” said Mays, who’d spent near­ly two decades as a cook at Coors Field and Ball Are­na before the pan­dem­ic stripped her of games and paychecks.

“I learned how to lis­ten to every­body, like I always do. I learned how to be the per­son that I need­ed to be. If it wasn’t for hold­ing hands with the Lord so long, I’d prob­a­bly be crazy. But He squeezes my hand every day.”

When 2020 didn’t test her faith, it chal­lenged her resolve. Already miss­ing full-time work with no events at Ball Are­na or Coors Field, a bad year got worse in ear­ly July. That’s when Mays, 62, got rear-end­ed at a stop light in Den­ver when anoth­er dri­ver in a Range Rover slammed into her Buick Century.

“I went to the hos­pi­tal, and they said my sci­at­ic nerve is jacked up and I have some bulging disks and a few oth­er things going on,” she said. “But here I am, talk­ing to you.”

The oth­er dri­ver, for­tu­nate­ly, was prop­er­ly insured. Mays remains more hurt, frankly, by what she feels is a lack of regard from the Rock­ies and Mon­fort toward long­time sta­di­um employ­ees. The ones who’ve been the back­bone, from behind the scenes, for one of the best ball­parks — and ball­park expe­ri­ences — in the major leagues.

“I don’t know if they’ll get (a crowd in 2021),” she said. “But from the way they treat­ed us, I’ve been speak­ing to peo­ple, and they don’t want to go back (to work) there. You put in ‘X’ amount of years, and when we need you, you turn your back on us? Not good.”

THE JERSEY GUY

Derek Fried­man learned to laugh in the face of dis­as­ter. Large­ly because, by Sep­tem­ber, he’d long since run out of tears.

“I prob­a­bly passed that some­where around the sixth time we were bro­ken into,” the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the metro’s four Sports­fan sports mer­chan­dise stores said. “It gets to the point where you real­ize that your imag­i­na­tion for all the things that could hap­pen wasn’t ever big enough.”

Break-ins. Loot­ing. Loss­es “well into six fig­ures,” Fried­man sighed.

The pan­dem­ic got the down­hill slide start­ed, and mer­ci­less­ly. The sud­den drop-off of in-store foot traf­fic that result­ed from the coro­n­avirus was acute dur­ing a stretch in April and May that should’ve seen Nuggets and Avalanche play­off runs over­lap with Rock­ies Open­ing Day.

“I’m not fur­loughed, but the company’s not pay­ing,” Fried­man chuckled.

On the plus side, he’s head­ing into the New Year with his health. And dri­ve. And a grow­ing sense that 2021, even­tu­al­ly, is going to return to 2019 busi­ness lev­els. Par­tic­u­lar­ly if fans can attend games again at Ball Are­na and Coors Field again.

Then again, we’ve learned not to get our hopes up.

“Every busi­ness plan comes with an aster­isk,” Fried­man said. “In this case, the aster­isks are ginor­mous. When we look, (you see) what feels like will be an intense amount of pent-up demand. Assum­ing things fall into place, 2021 could be an amaz­ing year.”

Staff reporter Kyle Fredrick­son con­tributed to this story.