Published: April 20, 2007 10:05 am      

Doug's Debacles 4-20-07

Tragedy at Virginia Tech puts things in perspective

It’s a shame that it takes a tragedy like the one that occurred on the campus of Virginia Tech earlier this week to put things in perspective for each of us, but that’s exactly what has happened over the past few days at the school located in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Tomorrow, the Hokie football team, fresh off a 10-3 season in 2006, which included a 31-24 loss to Georgia in the Chick-fil-A Bowl, (formerly Peach Bowl), was supposed to be celebrating the conclusion of spring football practice with its annual spring football game.

But, there will be no celebrations tomorrow at Virginia Tech, because earlier this week, head coach Frank Beamer and school officials canceled, not only the spring game, but the rest of spring football practice as well.

Again, everything has been put in its proper perspective this week, because folks at Virginia Tech are thinking about the 33 people that lost their lives on Monday, in the deadliest massacre in modern U.S. history.

The peaceful college community was turned absolutely upside down on Monday, when a lone gunman went on a shooting rampage, taking 32 innocent lives, before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life.

Football isn’t important right now at Virginia Tech, and really, it shouldn’t be important to any of us at all right now, when you consider what the families of these victims in this terrible ordeal are going through.

The suffering and pain throughout the Hokie community has to be immense, no doubt.

For now, sports is on the back-burner at Virginia Tech, and quite honestly, that’s a good thing.

We all need time right now, I believe, to reflect upon how the good Lord has blessed each and every one of us. I know I sure need to.

We lose our perspective at times, and I’m certainly as guilty of this as anyone reading this column today.

I mean, when UK loses a football game, or winds up on the short end of the scoreboard in a basketball game, I usually get pretty upset.

I live and die with every possession, every tackle, every three pointer missed, every play, every tick of the clock.

I bleed blue through and through, and I want my beloved Wildcats to win every game.

But, of course they don’t, because everyone has to lose at some point, now don’t they?

I know this of course, but I still get upset when the Cats are beaten. I just can’t help it; sports has always been my life, even as a kid.

And, when the NFL season is in full swing, my wife Debbie knows better to speak to me for at least 30 minutes after my Cincinnati Bengals lose a football game.

After all, she knows I need a cooling down period. The Bengals got beat — I’m ticked off!

I’m a fan, a great fan of my favorite teams, and I’m as competitive as they come.

However, sometimes, we get caught up in our own little worlds of sport, and we forget about the things that are, and should be the focal points of our lives.

Those are things like our families, our children, our loved ones, etc.

If you have a roof over your head, your kids have clothes to wear, and there is food on the table every night at dinner, you should be thankful — we all should be.

It’s a shame that we as a society today in America put way too much emphasis on sports and winning and losing.

Now don’t get me wrong, we need sports, because sometimes, we need the diversions that sports provide us to take the problems of this world away, even for the briefest of moments.

We need those moments and memories that we’ll take to our graves of our kids getting their first big hit at a T-ball game, or making that game-winning shot on the hardwood, or scoring that first touchdown at the youth league level. Or, in my own case, I need to relive every now and then Jack “Goose” Givens scoring 41 points in the 1978 NCAA championship game against Duke, when I watched my beloved Kentucky Wildcats win their first NCAA title in my own lifetime. We need diversions like that. I need them.

However, it’s also a shame that it takes a moment like Monday at Virginia Tech to smack us in the face, get our attention, and put our perspective back in its proper place.

For now, my heart is aching for the fine people and Virginia Tech — both the survivors of this terrible tragedy, the administrators at the school having to deal with this on a minute by minute basis, and the families of those who lost their lives, by either attending or attempting to teach at an institution of higher learning in the United States of America.

Perspective. It’s very easy to lose in America these days, but with the grace of God, hopefully I for one will be able to do a better job of remembering just where sports should rank in my own life.

I’m certain the folks at Virginia Tech have already been able to do this over the past few days.