Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Sports columnist Aaron McFarling: This is my hope: Folks will fill every seat.
Playing a game won't heal wounds, but it would give a brief diversion
Aaron McFarling
Recent columns
This is my hope: Folks will fill every seat.
Those who can't find a seat will wedge shoulder-to-shoulder on the hill overlooking left field.
For three hours, they will carry no candles.
For three hours, they will shed no tears.
They will put their cellphones away, not because the airwaves are too jammed to use them, but because all the people they want to talk to for those three hours will be close enough to touch.
They will not worry about their family and friends, because they asked all their family to come, implored all their friends to join them, and they all said yes.
This is my hope: Just as the convoy of news trucks begins pulling out of a heartbroken town, a different one begins its journey in.
This one will have Virginia Tech windsocks flying from antennas, Hokie magnets clinging to every piece of metal.
This one will be coming to see a ballgame.
This is my hope, and that is all it is.
I'm not naive enough to think that thousands of people will suddenly care about Friday's Tech baseball game against Miami at English Field. I'm not callous enough to think that it shouldn't be too soon for some people, that the thought of being among a crowd -- any crowd -- will be unappealing to many given the devastation one man has wreaked on Blacksburg.
But this is the sports section, a six-page palette for hope.
And this is mine: At 7 p.m. on Friday, when Tech conducts its first athletic contest since Monday's events, English Field will be overflowing with Hokies.
The images in Tuesday's newspaper dripped with horror and sadness. Teens being pulled away from carnage. Students hugging. People crying. Police with automatic weapons drawn, seeking a killer of 32 innocent people.
These pictures were enough to crush anybody, but somehow they seemed abstract. Distant. Like a chilling photo spread from some war-torn country overseas.
The image that knocked me flat appeared on page 8 of the Virginia section. It was a illustration by Jim McCloskey of the News Leader in Staunton. It showed a black background, and in the bottom left-hand corner in white was "April 16, 2007." On the right, a Hokie bird sat on the ground, eyes closed, teeth clenched, his right hand on his left knee, his left hand covering the right side of his face.
Sobbing.
The Hokie bird is not an academic symbol. He is a sports mascot, and other than the VT logo he is the most recognizable symbol this university has.
This is no accident. People can say what they want about the trivial nature of sports -- and at a time like this, anything not involving life and death does seem trivial -- but sports matter here. Football games are weekly celebrations. Basketball games have become regular sellouts. The football spring game -- a scrimmage, remember --routinely draws 20,000 or more.
There will be no spring football game this year. Tech canceled it Tuesday, an understandable move -- one supported by coach Frank Beamer. The players will not practice this week, either, effectively ending on-field football activity until late summer.
But Friday, they play baseball. It's a slower game, a less physical game, a game that, collegiately, largely unfolds away from the lenses of the national media.
In other words, it's the kind of event we need. And if those who are willing and able decide to embrace it, it could be a special night.
Today, a campus continues to mourn. At Virginia Tech, sports mean less than they ever have.
But this is my hope: On Friday, they'll matter just a little. The fans will come, the teams will play, and the Hokie bird will take his left hand off his face and watch it all happen, one small step closer to rising again.
