Too Long Away, Much To Say About the Power of Sports

I didn’t realize I’d been away for a month, at least from writing here, in my favorite space at Culture in Sports. Having predicted the return of sports since the beginning of this Summer, it appears despite Covid-related concerns in many states, sports are returning in full force. In fact, so much has been happening in sports that it is hard to limit comment now to a single subject. So, I’ll lean in and share some quick takes on the Olympics, the coming fall season of baseball, football and returns to school, and finish up with how sports helped us through the days after 9/11 and as its 20th anniversary approaches, why that is remains a good memory that helped lift us out of tragedy.

The Olympics
Should the Games Have Gone On?
It is difficult for anyone without the long lens of history to say whether these Olympic Games in Tokyo should have gone on. Certainly, in the face of a global pandemic and without fans or visitors, one must question if any of the usual objectives for which a nation or city takes on the extraordinary burden of hosting an Olympic Games were even achievable, let alone achieved.

There are even questions as to whether the Olympics are a worthwhile undertaking at all due to costs and remoteness of tangible returns. This is a drastic change from the early years of this century when New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, DC all mounted campaigns to be the US candidate city and first tier global cities from London, Paris, Shanghai, Rio, Istanbul, Tokyo all wrestled to gain the final hosting nod.

Now the landscape more closely resembles the late 1970s and early 1980s, when after marred games in Mexico City 1968 (social unrest), Munich 1972 (terrorism), Montreal 1976 (boycott and cost overruns) and Moscow 1980 (bigger boycott) reduced the bidders for the 1984 Summer Games to one serious bid from Los Angeles and one not so serious one from North Korea. Then Los Angeles was such a great party, in the entertainment capital of the world, and so wildly profitable that it perhaps saved the Olympic Games. So much so that nobody noticed a Soviet Bloc boycott. The forecast might not have been quite so dire if these delayed Tokyo Games hadn’t happened. But they did and the competitors showed why, even if flawed and at times corrupted, Olympic competition still matters. And has there ever been a global sports event that more needed as an acknowledgement of the human need to engage in play and competition, even if it wasn’t as watched as others have been?

The Marvelous US Women
The Tokyo Games were not without storylines, but so many of the best and most uplifting ones involved the resilience of the US women. After the retirement of many marquee stars, the Tokyo Games lacked some of the star power, especially in the first week after gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from several events, but American women proved on the track not just ready for the moment but took it and ran away with it.

The battle between Dalilah Muhammad and Sydney McLaughlin, who traded world records in the 400-meter hurdles, on the way to silver and gold medals respectively, captured the power and resilience of American female athletes. Muhammad and McLaughlin, then teamed with 800m Champion Athing Mu, who just finished with her freshman year of college, and veteran Allyson Felix, to put an exclamation mark on an Olympic track meet that redeemed the Games on the winged feet of this stunningly fast group of women.

Sports Return for Real
At the beginning of Summer, I took some time to write a series of articles about things athletes, coaches, and parents could do to effect young athletes positively and negatively as sports were resuming.

Sports are back in earnest, now, even if Covid persists. The two likely will continued to be intertwined in the storyline, as even NFL coaches have acknowledged a connection between roster decisions and vaccination status. I will be the first to admit I am a lawyer not an epidemiologist, but balancing health risks against sports’ benefits looks to be a persistent equation going forward even as the calendar turns to post-season baseball, the beginning of football with basketball, hockey, and normalcy hopefully not far behind. Which brings us both to our conclusion and back to where we began- looking at the need for and power of sports.

Sports and the Recovery from 9/11
As we prepare to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, a moment that touched all Americans and brought us together as little else has before, and surely has since, it is worth noting how much sports helped that recovery.

Sports didn’t make the pain or the loss any less intense, but they did bring back a sense of normalcy when that was hard to find and that is often the turning point when we recognize the pain won’t last. For anyone who old enough to remember that time, I bet you still can recall that first moment on a playing field, whether as player or a spectator, when you felt joy or elation again after days of grief.

How powerful was that feeling?

How long had it been missing?

And was that the first moment you began to believe, really believe, you would get through this terrible time?

We’ve all been through terrible times, collectively, for the last 18 months. As we mark the painful, yet hallowed anniversary of 9/11, let’s take strength from the knowledge that we can and will make it through, and sports have the power to reveal how.