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Temporary diversion Games would have provided only a brief respite
On the Saturday morning following the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta -- a far smaller tragedy than the one which has taken place this week -- I interviewed people as they arrived at the Olympic Stadium to watch track and field. A humid, misty rain fell, shriveling us all, and a sense of loss hung in the air. Yet fans streamed through the gates of the future Turner Field, filling nearly every seat in the stadium for non-medal morning events. Nearly every person I spoke with -- male, female, grown-ups, children -- said that they would not allow terrorism to keep them away. Some said they felt fear, but also indignation. At the 100-meter finals that night, Canadian Donovan Bailey won the gold medal and broke the world record. Defending Olympic champion Linford Christie was disqualified for twice false-starting, then petulantly refused to leave the track. It all made for great theater, and the stadium rocked with excitement. It is argued by many -- then and now -- that sporting events allow us to return to normalcy in times of great tragedy, and that they help us to grieve together. For a few hours in Atlanta, that was surely true, but the stadium emptied in an odd silence that night, and long after my work was done I felt conflicted, as so many others must have, as well -- not just fans and journalists, but athletes, too. Were we properly defiant or improperly disrespectful? I know that whatever sense of healing I felt passed when the event was finished, replaced again by sadness. Five years later, no sport seemed more similarly conflicted than college football did this week. Well into Thursday, the sport was riven by the inability of its powers to reach a unanimous decision on whether to play games Saturday. The Big East and ACC (not coincidentally, conferences which surround New York and Washington, D.C.), along with the Pac-10, elected not to compete. The Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC decided that the games should go on. Of course, on Thursday afternoon college football fell in line behind the monolithic NFL; there will be no Division I-A games on Saturday. One of the reasons that college football was so indecisive is that there is no more schedule-sensitive sport in the U.S. Here's why: 1) The sport has no real postseason, so regular-season games take on a large significance. The Tennessee-Florida game, which would have been played in Gainesville Saturday afternoon, would have had its annual major impact on the conference standings, national rankings and future bowl assignments. Likewise, the Georgia Tech-Florida State and Washington-Miami games. 2) There is no major sport played in America with fewer home games per team. Tens of thousands of fans, many of whom travel long distances, plan their year around five or six weekends spent in State College or Lincoln or Knoxville. Campuses plan in the same way. Moving any of these games is monumentally disruptive. There are, of course, larger issues this weekend. The nation is in mourning, opening the door for writers and broadcasters to point out, with great gravity, that "sports just aren't important right now." Well, people should have realized long before Tuesday that sports just aren't that important, and it shouldn't take a national tragedy of unprecedented scale to drive home that point. In the best of times, sports are a diversion and nothing more, even to those of us who make our living in them. From a sporting standpoint, this weekend was full of "important" games. Tennessee again might have been faced with an early-season loss to Florida that cripples its SEC and national-title hopes. Georgia Tech would have had the chance to blitz Florida State redshirt freshman quarterback Chris Rix before he got more valuable playing experience. Miami and Washington will now play a late-season intersectional game that likely will have a huge impact on the major-bowl alignment, similar to what took place in 1998, when Miami ruined UCLA's season in a December game that had been Hurricaned-out in September. Many games that would have been played before the BCS rankings begin will now be played afterward, a subtle but not insignificant distinction. All of these changes will add more twists to a college season that is perpetually twisted. In the bigger view, it's impossible for any American to say which course of action was best: to play this weekend or to stand aside, quietly. The decision is intensely personal, and some people had already made a choice. For a brief time on Thursday, my editors thought I should go to Gainesville, Fla., to write a story about the atmosphere at the Tennessee-Florida game. When my travel agent started looking for a hotel room, there were plenty. In Gainesville. On a football weekend. I can't begin to say which course is best. I only know this: I was enthralled with the events that unfolded before me in Atlanta five years ago, shutting out the tragedy -- again, so small by comparison -- of the early morning. But it was fleeting relief, followed by a nagging guilt. I fear that college fans would have felt that same way on Saturday night. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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