With the economy in the toilet and the state looking to make ends meet, a conversation has arisen about the importance of sports. Though most of the discussion has focused on high school sports, no level is immune to the ill-effects of budget cuts.
It’s easy enough to course through a budget, line by line, and strike games off schedules and limit sport-related expenses with an executive turn of the wrist. And while it’s certainly necessary to give every sector of the economy its requisite fat-trimming, sports, especially those involving student-athletes, should be spared – at least a little – because of their ability to unite people and soften life’s roundhouse blows.
And by no means am I trying to conjure up images of the triumphant baseball games that were played after 9/11, complete with soaring eagles and F-15s.
No, this is a different time of unity. It’s the sort of thing you might find at the Sappi paper mill or at the local grocery store.
It’s the conversations about the neighboring town’s point guard or the running back from down Portland-way.
No matter what else, sports have the unique ability to bring people together, even during times of Blackberries and Podcasts. At the high school and small college level – untainted by mass media coverage, huge revenues and greed – sports pack gymnasiums and bring people together like nothing else I can think of.
Just check out the Civic Center during tournament time in February. From the smallest Maine towns like Vinalhaven, to the state’s only legitimate city, Portland, people flock to watch and eat and experience the thrill of watching 15 to 18 year olds compete.
And while the conversations about budget cuts don’t call for doing away with tournaments as a whole, they are asking for smaller fields and shorter seasons.
It’d be a shame if any fewer games were held. It’d be a travesty if, for even one less night in the dead of winter, two communities couldn’t be soldered together by the heat of athletic rivalry.
Yeah, maybe I’m romanticizing a purely mathematic situation. But I dare anyone to name one other instance where so many people come together to rejoice in a single thing.
And this, of course, fails to mention the unquantifiable impact of sports on young people. For it is through sports that friendships are forged, lessons are learned and younger generations ward off the unfortunate childhood obesity problem.
Ask a USM athlete sometime if they could put a price tag on all things sports. My guess is they’ll probably tell you it’s priceless. And, well, they’re right.
No matter how many dollars and cents are saved by scratching games off schedules, the losses to our state, as a whole, will throw us even more in debt, if only in a different way.