Standing Room Only
People often question my fascination with sports. citing its trivial nature, spoiled participants, and overall uselessness in the grand scheme of things.
On September 11, I was certainly one of those people.
The previous night was the first Monday Night Football game of the year: New York Giants vs. Denver Broncos, at the new Mile-High Stadium. Ed McCaffrey had just horrifically broken his leg, in what would amount to a season-ending injury. I immediately began to rehash my just written AFC preview article, and how my prediction of the Broncos being in the Super Bowl would probably not be coming true.
After the events that transpired the following morning, I honestly did not care about the pennant races in baseball, the exciting start of the NFL season, and the stories that are always abundant in the sports world.
Instead of the usual ESPN.com morning fix, my browser was fixed at CNN.com. Forget about the Astros finding their offense, I was interested in the finding of the madman who was responsible for all this. Who were the Rams supposed to play next week? Who cared.
As the week went on, I, like much of the nation, was still angry. Angry that very little was still known about the attackers, angry that no retaliation had taken place, angry that everybody’s lives were changed forever. When the respective leagues were discussing whether or not to postpone their games longer, I cringed. Was this really an important issue that had to be dealt with now?
Something funny happened, however, when sports did resume play. The anger subsided. You can look at the number of memorials that were held as ways to get people to share their grief together, but it wasn’t until sports resumed that people started to move past the tragedies.
I thought stadiums would be barren at the upcoming games. they were all sold out. I thought these events were just offering more targets for terrorism. I was naive. Games allowed this country to not only return to some semblance of normalcy, they showed that we would not live in fear, eliminating the exact goal of any terrorist act.
Within the next few weeks, people were once again firmly entrenched in the Barry Bonds home run quest and the Rams being undefeated, all the while preserving the memory of what happened that fateful Tuesday. A tragedy is always something terrible to deal with, but it would have been that much harder had people not been able to turn to sports to rekindle their lives as they once knew them.
I often wonder what this world would be like if 9-11 had not occurred. There are the superficial things, like seeing shorter lines at the airport. But, there are also the more meaningful ones. like listening to the words of the national anthem, and actually feeling a sense of pride when one sees the American flag.
It also proved that sports are indeed a useful and necessary part of society. Just as we feel that going to the movies, watching our favorite sitcoms, and listening to music help take us away from the harsh world of reality, sports provides all of this while remaining in the real world.
Never again will I allow somebody to question my fascination of this industry, for it has served a purpose that no other source of recreation could fulfill. While this was not the panacea to all recovery of our nation’s grief, it was a catalyst.
Sure, there will continue to be the labor struggles, player selfishness and overall bad connotations associated with these games, but until something else is able to replace the innocence and sheer competition that sports allow one to feel, its role in our nation is irreplaceable.
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