Game Off

In the wake of Tuesday's tragedy, all major sporting events this weekend have been canceled or postponed. In a cowardly act of terrorism against the US, commercial jet planes were hijacked and crashed into both towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, utterly destroying the WTC and killing thousands of innocent people and damaging the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed into an unpopulated wooded area in Pennsylvania due to the heroism of the passengers of that flight, who attempted to attack the terroists and regain control of the plane.

Thursday morning, the NFL decided to cancel its games for the weekend. It has yet to be determined if the games will be made up, but the NFL is leaning towards making up the games at the expense of the first round of playoffs and reducing the number of playoff teams unfairly from 12 to 8. I've heard it said many times that the NFL canceled games more because of what happened in 1963 than what happened on 9/11/01. The NFL decided to play games in 1963 on the Sunday after JFK was shot, a decision later regretted by commissioner Pete Rozelle. About 2/3 of college football games had been scheduled to be played, including #8 Tennessee at #2 Florida, but those were postponed or canceled because the NFL was canceled, and Major League Baseball decided that if the NFL wasn't going to play on Sunday, they wouldn't resume play until Monday. In the face of this tragedy, these were the wrong decisions.

Sports is insignificant compared to what happened on Tuesday, and it shouldn't have taken this tragedy to convince anyone of this. They are just games, not life. But they are a distraction from life. And sometimes that is what we need. Sports have always been a part of the national healing process after any tragedy, going back to when FDR wrote a letter to then commissioner of baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis imploring him that baseball continue during World War II, to serve as a positive distraction for the American people. And that's what people need this weekend, a distraction from the heartbreak of Tuesday. Instead of sitting at home, depressed, it would be better for people to get out, congregate and commiserate with friends and strangers, and for 3 1/2 hours have a good time and get their mind off of the surreal tragedy. As I've heard psychiatrists say on television, in situations such as this, people must have a release for all their aggression and frustration and sports is very good at fulfilling this.

If not playing these games could bring back just one life or turn back the clock, then there's no question we should not play them. But they can't change anything, only help us to move on. And we must move on. The real heroes, the firefighters and policemen are still searching through the rubble of the World Trade Center for survivors. That's their job, and they are making a huge difference by doing it bravely. Athletes could contribute in a different way by doing their job. The SEC and Big 10 had both promised to donate $1 million from the proceeds of Saturday's games to help the victims of the attack. They were also going to encourage fans attending the games to make donations as well, which would have raised a lot more money. The NFL should have taken the lead by playing the games this Sunday (postponing until Monday games in New York and Washington) and donating all profits to help the victims. They could have made a big contribution, raised over $20 million to help the victims of this horrible crime. That would have given the players a purpose to play this weekend, a feeling that they could make a contribution to help the victims. Baseball could have followed suit by donating all profits from the weekend.

The games should also go on because they must. They always do eventually. As President Bush and Senator McCain have said, we cannot allow these terrorists to dictate what we can and cannot do, we cannot allow them to limit our freedoms or change our normal life. Our normal life includes sports, and while it is a small part of our lives, it sends a message to the terrorsts that they cannot shut down this great nation, they cannot bring us to our knees.

And what kind of message are we sending by not playing this weekend? If we say that the proper way to mourn this weekend is by having no NFL, no college football, no baseball, what then? Do we say that people can't goto the movie theater? Can't goto Blockbuster? Where do we draw the line? I rented a movie tonight, had a few beers, and watched it with my roommate...because I'm tired of watching what happened on Tuesday for the past two days...tired of all the death...and I want something to entertain me, something to take my mind off of the tragedy. I've heard people on TV say that it wouldn't be right to play a game with bodies still being pulled out of the rubble, with smoke still in the air and the World Trade Center in ruins. Well, guess what, there will still be bodies being recovered long after this weekend, and even after the smoke clears, the New York City skyline will bear the scar of losing the World Trade Center for a long time to come.

I hope even though there's no football this weekend we still see a devestating aerial attack. I hope that we track down and obliterate every bastard connected to this heinous act this weekend. And my prayers are with everyone near the tragedy and their family and friends and I pray that all the victims are now with God in Heaven and that we will bring the perpertrators of this to justice. But rather than sit at home this weekend doing nothing, watching the same images, becoming more depressed and admitting defeat to the terroists, we should try to move on as hard as that may be. We need a distraction from this, something that can in some way contribute to the efforts to rescue and rebuild, something to get our minds off of it for a few hours and begin the national healing process, something to tell the terrorists in a collective voice that we will not go quietly into the night, that we will live on, and move on, and they cannot and will not dictate our everyday lives to us. So I say let the games be played. Let them resume as soon as is safely and logistically possible. Play Ball! Game on!

ESPN.com Page 2: Sports can help us heal
ESPN.com Page 2: Why we need sports now
ESPN.com Readers' Letters
Seattle Times: An avenue for grieving is lost in NFL's cancellation
CNN.com complete coverage
Yahoo! News complete coverage