Healing through sports

When tragedy strikes, everything else quickly goes on the back burner. In an instant, everything is put into perspective. Sports are no exception.

Following the events at Northern Illinois University on Thursday afternoon, the school decided to cancel all athletic events this past weekend, and rightfully so. The University has since decided to cancel all sporting events until Feb. 24

Now is not the time to strategize what pressure defense to use against your opponent. Who could even worry about a game when members of your own community have been senselessly taken from you? Who can try to run a race with a clear head when, back home, friends are grieving over this terrible tragedy?

Everything needs to be put on hold when something like this happens. Everything can wait.

After watching news coverage of what happened in DeKalb, Ill., it's easy to let your mind wander and wonder if it's all really worth it. Like the University at Buffalo, Northern Illinois is a member of the Mid-American Conference. Essentially, we're members of the same athletic fraternity.

UB President John B. Simpson even stressed that connection in his statement regarding the tragedy on Friday. Seeing the tragedy there, in a school not unlike our own, is when the magnitude of the situation really hits you.

I'm as guilty as any when it comes to taking sports too seriously. "To live and die" with your team is a common phrase and has taken on a meaning of its own. But "to live and die" is a cycle of life, while sports will always be there. Sports, like any other form of entertainment, are something we can fall back into when the time is right, whenever that may be.

When to go back is just a matter of how seriously we take it. Not just in how much we care about a team, but in how valuable that form of entertainment is; how important is that release?

The daily grinds of a season and the extraordinary feats we witness on the field, or on the floor, gridiron, ice, pitch, etc. help in giving fans a personality and a sense of joy. Seeing your team win a championship can be one of the happiest moments of your life. But if it never comes, then what exactly are you living for?

In the words of ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons, not winning a championship is "every fan's worst fear. All that energy over the years just getting displaced, no release, no satisfaction, nothing. Season after season, no championship...and then you die."

While the phrase "to live and die" has a quite literal meaning there, we need to be able to take a step back and look at the big picture. The sport will still be there after we die. There's more to life, and while sports can be a big part of it, it should not consume us.

I know when I sit down to watch a game, the world stops spinning. Whether I'm in the arena or on my couch, what's going down on the playing field is all that matters in that moment.

When something exciting happens, living that moment with people just as passionate as you are is half the fun. It's a communal and primal experience that's nearly impossible to describe. Just looking at recent events, anyone who attended the NHL Winter Classic knows exactly what I mean. It's about that sense of community that brings the most diverse people together for just a simple game.

While this is still a time for mourning and remembrance, the sooner things return to normal, the better. Sports are entertainment, and as soon as we can become entertained again, we can all take the next step in the healing process.

After 9/11, we all realized that sports are a vital piece of our culture.

Who can forget the run the New York Yankees made to the World Series that year and how much it meant to the spirit of the Big Apple? From Ronan Tynan's stirring rendition of "God Bless America" during every seventh inning stretch at Yankee Stadium to the shots of then-mayor Rudy Giuliani sitting in the stands wearing his NYPD-NYFD baseball cap in honor of our country's real heroes; we were all New Yorkers.

Even look at how the "Miracle on Ice" in the 1980 Winter Olympics brought the United States together during a time of paranoia and uncertainty. The entire country rallied together for that one night in late February and it remains one of, if not the greatest, athletic achievements in American history.

With the influx of the media and new technology, sports have been ingrained in our culture and, especially today, have become hard to separate from the mainstream. After all, the Super Bowl is the most-watched television show in the world every year. And it is Congress that seems to have nothing better to do than to go after the country's major sports leagues and accusations of cheating in all its forms.

So when the games resume, so do our lives. Simmons may simplify the whole process, but sports really are an extension of our lives. Some of my best memories involve sitting down with friends and families during a big game.

It's all in the memories we hold on to that tell the tales of our lives. The games we watch can tell some amazing stories and how we existentially live through them can define us, good or bad.

So today, let's remember those who have lost their lives at Northern Illinois. And tomorrow, maybe we can all begin our journey back to normalcy.