On Sports and Loss

Earlier this week, my grandmother passed away at the ripe old age of 83 years old. We are traveling today to her funeral, so it goes without saying that posting over the weekend will be somewhere in the range of minimal to non-existent.

It has been a rough and long week, and being that I write a college basketball blog, it made me think about sports in a time of loss and grief. On the one hand, it really drives home the point that the results of these sporting events are pretty meaningless. For instance, I am a huge Minnesota Vikings fan... every Sunday during the football season, I live and die with whether they win or lose. However, that certainly gets put in perspective quickly, and you realize that things like that simply don't matter in life. Either way, the sun will come up the next day.

On the other hand, sports is great in that it provides an outlet, a relief from everything else. My wife and I went to the Weber State/Northern Colorado game, and for 2.5 hours I did not think about the passing of a loved one, travel arrangements, work, or anything else. I just thought about the great game of basketball, what was happening out on the floor, and took in all I was seeing. It was healing in a way that sometimes only sports can be. Those who do not follow sports often dismiss it as being pointless, but they don't understand the beauty of the game like we do.

Basketball sure is a great game.

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