Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Sports offer solace, definitions in times of need
By Matt Stiver
Skiff Staff

He left.

The greatest hitter in the game, in his prime, walked out of the ball yard and into a recruiting office.

In a way, Ted Williams signified a generation of Americans. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, millions of Americans flocked to the enlist in the armed forces.

Another did not have to go, but insisted on doing his duty. A Pro Bowl-caliber offensive lineman refused his deferments. Bob Kaslu, a member of ROTC during his time at the University of Alabama, left a wife and a son before he left his life on a hill in Vietnam defending his country.

When America has shook, sport has shaken with it. When tragedy strikes, America must move on. It always has, and it will again.

Tuesday morning terrorists flew three hijacked planes into landmarks of American strength: Two into the World Trade Center Towers in lower Manhattan and one into the Pentagon, the nerve-center of the American military.

The goal of terrorism is to incite fear and take people out of their routines. It must not achieve its goal.

The world of sport has helped America in times of trial. President Franklin D. Roosevelt decreed that Major League Baseball should continue with the inferno of World War II. At the height of the Allied bombing offensive against Iraq in January 1991, the National Football League held Super Bowl XXV.

This proves much, much more than just that Americans enjoy athletic competition. It proves that terror will never succeed, and that America will always continue.

TCU football coach Gary Patterson led his team onto the practice fields Tuesday afternoon, but not before a team prayer.

“We cannot allow America to stop,” Patterson said. “We have to take the stand of going on and having a purpose.”

Three events have caused baseball to wipe its slate of scheduled games: The death of President Warren G. Harding in 1923, the Allied invasion of France in 1944 and when President Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945.

Major League Baseball canceled all 15 games Tuesday. Barry Bonds stopped his assault on the home run record because of the assault on his country. The Chicago Cubs, at least for a day, halted their drive to halt 95 years of championship drought.

“In the interest of security and out of a sense of deep mourning for the national tragedy that has occurred (Tuesday), all Major League Baseball games for (Tuesday) have been canceled,” Commissioner Bud Selig said in a release. “I will continue to monitor the situation on a daily basis and make ongoing decisions accordingly. My deepest sympathy and prayers go out to the families and victims of this horrendous series of events.”

In many respects, Selig was right in his decision. Tuesday’s events mark the deadliest terrorist attacks in American history, a nightmare come true. Yet America cannot be paralyzed. It must move forward.

Terrorism succeeds if it shakes people, if it brings dread, if it stops normal life. The terrorists will win if they take Americans out of their place.

That America is the greatest, strongest nation in the history of the human experience is no accident. The people who built this nation never allowed evil and terror to triumph.

Matt Stiver is a senior news-editorial journalism major from Uniontown, Ohio. He can be reached at (m.r.stiver@student.tcu.edu).