Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Its the most wonderful time of the year.
No, it’s not Christmas, though if you searched hard enough, you could probably find some holiday decorations inside your local Hallmark or Walmart. No, its not time for classes to start back, though that is the tune my parents would always sing when it was time to head to the store for some back-to-school shopping. No, it is neither of these.
It’s the first day of September. I woke up earlier than any reasonable college student would on the Saturday after the first full week of class, threw on a red t-shirt and my lucky red socks, and made my way to Raleigh. I’ve been waiting on this day since last December, envisioning the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feeling of being back. Back in the red and white, with 57,000 of my closest friends, cheering, yelling, all sharing the same experience.
We all file in. The clock strikes noon. The ball is kicked. The canon fires. We cheer.
College football is back.
The game itself was fairly uneventful, NC State was able to put away lower-league opponent James Madison without too may major problems, but the meaning of the day could not be understated. Across the country, people of every race, gender, religion, social class, and sexuality joined together to cheer on their own respective teams. For those few hours, to those in the stadiums and those watching from around the country, nothing else mattered.
Sports bring our nation together better than almost anything else in our society today. Even the strong divisiveness of politics cannot separate the unity of sports. Players can sit during the national anthem, wear all black during warm ups, write messages on their cleats, and make countless other political statements on and off the field, but once the ball is in play, none of that matters.
Sports are a uniting force across the country, and college football embodies this better than almost any other. Tony Lee of Breitbart exemplifies this in a story about a routine trip to the store.
“Nearly a decade ago, I was walking out of a Target–with my Alabama cap on–when I heard strangers yelling ‘Roll Tide!’ I instantly turned around, smiled, and we chatted for considerable length about SEC football as if we were lost friends, united by a love for Alabama football, the SEC, and college football.”
He goes on to explain that he was in California at the time, nowhere near Alabama, and yet the meeting was like a family reunion. Just yesterday on campus, I passed a student in a San Francisco baseball jersey and another voice behind me exclaimed “Go Giants!” Yet again, brought together by nothing but a love of sports.
Sports are not outside of politics, quite the opposite. In recent years, the two have become increasingly intertwined. Despite this, the divisiveness of politics does not take away from the unifying force of sports. As much as President Trump would like it to happen, Americans are not going to boycott the NFL because of certain players’ stance on the national anthem. Sports have become a platform for politics, and yet politics have not taken away from sports.
In many cases, sports have been used to ease the wounds of a tense political climate. It’s a beautiful relationship that unifies our nation outside of sports. It’s the White Sox/Yankees game the weekend after the attacks on September 11, with Phyllis Arnold’s emotional pregame rendition of God Bless America in front of a sea of red, white, and blue. It’s the first World Series game in New York City later that year, with President Bush throwing out a perfect first pitch followed by the deafening chants of “USA!” The message was clear: the world around us may be crumbling, but we will carry on. By the power of sports, we will carry on, stronger and more unified than ever.
The political climate today is more divisive than in any other time period in recent memory. This makes the unifying power of sports all the more important. It offers a much-needed reprieve from the daily back-and-forth currently facing our nation.
As the weeks turn into months and years, I have found it almost impossible to get away from the ever-present noise of politics, but not anymore. For the next few months, once Saturday rolls around, you’ll find me in section 222, row C, seat 4, escaping to a different kind of noise. One that brings us together for a common love, and for those few hours, nothing else matters.