Sports view: What do sports really mean to a town?

By Sun Advocate

While I was watching the news this weekend, I saw a report on the Tulane University football team.
Tulanes campus is located in the middle of New Orleans, and Hurricane Katrina, and the consequent flood destroyed the schools campus.
The team, which has been intact for the past couple of weeks, have been practicing in various places outside of New Orleans getting ready for their first game against Mississippi State. But where that game was going to be played this last weekend, was up in the air. There were talks with places in Texas and Oklahoma, but the Green Wave finally played that game against the Bulldogs at Louisiana Tech field in Shreveport, La.
In terms of standings or national importance to the game of college football, it wasn’t an important game. But to those that watch the human spirit, and how it can be represented in sport, it was.
Tulane lost, but the fact the school fielded a team at all, and that the players and coaches were able to put together a consistent effort after being bounced all over the south says something for the program and those young men.
On the other hand, the national media also blew the whole thing out of proportion. A team is a team, and regardless of the circumstances, when it is formed it sticks together, and in fact often is more cohesive under dire circumstances.
That is to take nothing away from the players and coaches, but one has to ask a very important question.
Do we think those who lost their homes and loved ones and are presently living in shelters really care about whether a college football team won or lost, or even played at all?
Sports are for fun and entertainment and have little to do with real life for the majority of people.
Simply, the media moguls shouldn’t make more of a game than it really means in view of the circumstances.