Julie Kendall
Sports Editor
Sporting events tend to take on an emotionally heightened tone following tragic events. Week in and week out, stadiums, ball fields and arenas serve as stages for live competition-based entertainment. But in the wake of large-scale disaster, their role as community gathering places where displays of human resilience take place intensifies. Especially when the person or team hit the hardest by tragedy comes out the victor.
It’s impossible to forget Mike Piazza’s bottom-of-the-eighth home run on Sept. 21, 2011, in the first major sporting event held in New York after 9/11. For days prior to that game, debates had raged as to whether it was not only safe, but even appropriate to play baseball in this time of national suffering and confusion. But after a ten-day hiatus from sports, this particular game symbolized a step towards a return to normalcy. Cheers of “U-S-A” erupted in Shea Stadium as the ball sailed over the outfield wall, revealing that New Yorkers needed this; something to cheer about, as a community.
The New Orleans Saints’ journey to Super Bowl victory in 2009 was seen by many to represent the city’s resurgence after Hurricane Katrina. Five years after their stadium was used to shelter displaced hurricane victims, the underdog team won 13 regular season games, topped with an upset of the Indianapolis Colts in one of the more memorable championships in recent years.
After Hurricane Sandy ravaged the east coast last week, the post-disaster future of sporting events once again sparked controversy. Almost immediately, Mayor Bloomberg called on the NBA to cancel Thursday’s highly anticipated game between the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Knicks at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Everyone agreed that the teams’ debut celebration would be in poor taste.
However, as New York City worked to house displaced people, pump out floodwaters and restore power to millions of households and businesses, Bloomberg insisted for several days that the New York City Marathon would not be cancelled. He believed in the healing power of large scale sporting events, not to mention the millions of dollars it would pump into the city’s economy.
Americans were outraged. Aside from the logistical chaos of bringing thousands of people into a city with diminished electricity and mass transit, the event would inevitably divert police forces, generators, money and safe lodging from citizens who needed it. This was a much different situation than the post-disaster Mets or Saints. This was not a gathering of spectators in a confined arena, distanced from destruction; it was a footrace that paraded runners through a devastated city. Participants were not just affected locals, but also tourists from around the globe.
Eventually, conceding to the protest of the people, Bloomberg begrudgingly cancelled the marathon, saying he didn’t want a “cloud” hanging over the event. I strongly believe in the resilience of Americans after tragedy, and the psychological power of sporting events to help restore solidarity and hope. But discretion is key; there needs to be certainty that they are not doing more harm than good.
Thousands of marathoners reportedly showed up to run the route anyway, and marathon organizers have set up a “Race to Recovery” fund that has raised millions of dollars toward relief efforts. Such deeds exemplify the most powerful aspect of sports — community support.
