Every year, sports fans around the world live or die with the success of their respective teams. On Monday, a tragedy of unmeasurable proportions that happened on the campus of Virginia Tech University put that mindset into perspective.
Sports fans plan their lives around their teams' sporting events. We lose sleep over an error made by a shortstop, or hate a rival team with all of our hearts, but when a tragedy strikes, sports take a back seat to what is really important in life.
The Hokie fan base is one of the loudest and most loyal fan bases in college football, and like every other sports-crazed collegiate town, Blacksburg, Va. obsesses over its football team year round.
With the events that occurred on Monday, school officials decided to cancel the last four spring practices, including the spring game that was set to happen this weekend. I'm sure no one minded or thought twice about it because they had stopped caring about a trivial thing like who was going to win the job at quarterback. Instead, they had turned their attention to those who lost their lives in the worst massacre in United States history.
Football wasn't the only thing to take a back seat. All of the school's baseball and softball games were canceled up to this weekend to give everyone the proper time to grieve for the loss of their classmates. Instead of baseball or softball players adorning the front page of Virginia Tech's athletic site, there are pictures of thousands of people holding candles.
Maybe as sports fans, we should take a step back more often. It really won't be the end of the world if you miss Game 7 of the World Series, and it's not worth it to have a stroke because an umpire missed a call.
There is a time for sports. Sports bring thousands of people together for a common cause and allow people to escape from their daily lives for a few hours a day. It allows people to rejoice over accomplishments they didn't even achieve.
Virginia Tech football coach Frank Beamer said it best when he said, There's a time for (sports). When we pick it back up
it's a time for everybody to come together and everybody to go in the same direction and have a purpose together. I think Virginia Tech will be closer together than ever.
Matt O'Donnell is a sophomore journalism major and covers softball for The Post. Send him an e-mail at mo134405@ohio.edu. 17
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