Last week, The Scout briefly covered theevents at Mizzou, where there were racially charged protests and created a divide among the students on Mizzou’s campus.
Various acts of racism were committed and a divide emerged without adquate action from the Mizzou administation, and graduate student Jonathan Butler had enough of it. He decided to go on a hunger strike until university President Tim Wolfe resigned from his post.
The resignation was undoubtedly hastened by the strike of the football team, who stood with #ConcernedStudent1950 and asked for the president to step down, declaring they would not play until said resignation was assured.
Last Friday, terrorism struck Paris, France. One hundred and twenty-nine people were killed throughout the city from explosions created by bombs and execution-style gunfire in a crowded ballroom.
Countries worldwide have also been struck by tragedy recently. Whether it was an earthquake in Japan or the repeated bombings in Beirut, Lebanon, there is sorrow to be felt around the globe.
I’m saying all of this to emphasize something that we as sports fans, especially in this country, treasure: We are beyond blessed to be able to talk about sports like they actually matter every single freaking day. While sports are influential, they aren’t that nearly as important as we make them out to be.
For the most part, we have very little to fear in this country. Our national defense protects us fabulously and acts of terrorism are few and far between. We’re lucky to have that.
I am also forever thankful that I live in a place where ESPN’s Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith can infuriate sports fans by excreting
“hot takes” for entertainment.
I love that I can wake up every morning to a phone update that says something along the lines of “BREAKING NEWS: Peyton Manning is old and isn’t good anymore” (exaggerated, yes. But the point is still there. Time to hang ‘em up, man).
I’m thrilled that I’m allowed to get pissed off about a blown holding call that allowed Tom Brady to throw a touchdown and win, because any day that Tom Brady wins a game is a bad day.
In the end, all of these things are trivial. My fantasy team’s loss last week won’t push for a change to end racial discrimination in this country. A Jimmy Butler blocked shot to beat my Pacers won’t start a conversation about how we might put an end to terrorism. A tweet from any athlete apologizing for their performance won’t console any of the families of lost ones.
Sports are just silly, unimportant games that we get too caught up in. They matter, but only to an extent. Still, I’m happy I can care about sports as much as I do.
We all need to recognize that life is more than just about sports. Life is about many things: humanity, equality and love. And until we can figure out how to fix some of the glaring problems in our world, nothing else should really matter.
