Even at war, the tourney continues

And the games go on. Just as they did before, sports will continue.

Halfway around the world, teenage soldiers, our young men and women, our friends and families, are dying, fighting in the name of our country, and the games go on.

NCAA president Myles Brand made the decision that the men's basketball tournament would go on as scheduled, despite the war in Iraq. He said that the tournament would continue in the name of normalcy, that a tyrant half way around the world shouldn't influence the way that we go about our daily lives.

As if continuing to play basketball marks some sort of victory over Saddam Hussein. The unwavering continuation of athletics does not signify life as usual. We, as a country, have already changed. We have become more aware of how vulnerable we are. We live with heightened security and lessened privacy. We are not the same as we were two years, two months, or two weeks ago, and the NCAA tournament won't change that.

This year's tournament should not have gone off as usual because the current times are anything but usual. Myles Brand should have cancelled, or at least postponed this year's games. All he did in allowing them to continue, unchanged, is increase the ever growing void between sports and reality.

It's easy to listen to people who tell us that canceling our games is giving in to the enemy. It's what we want to hear. We want our games to go on, and we don't want to be affected by whatever is happening anywhere else. What's not so easy is actually allowing sports to be connected to real life.

It was an incredibly awkward moment when, during the second round, double overtime thriller between Arizona and Gonzaga, CBS interrupted its game coverage to inform us of the latest casualties in the war.

One of the most incongruous statements I've heard in a long time was Dan Rather saying, "More information on American casualties as it becomes available. Now back to basketball." The lines between our sports and our reality blurred and it was uncomfortable, to say the least.

By continuing the tournament as usual, the gap we place between what is going on overseas and what is going on the sporting world is bigger than ever. It further supports athletes' notions that they live in a protected bubble, far removed from any semblance of reality. It tells our athletes that that they exist solely to compete in games, and nothing, not even a war, will stop those games from happening.

It is the reason why there are no athletes with opinions anymore. Athletes, both professional and amateur, have become so secure in their world that they stand to gain nothing by actually having something to say. Give me Jim Brown, Arthur Ashe, Mohammed Ali, Jackie Robinson. Give me somebody with something to say.

Disagree with Toni Smith all you want, at least she had the willingness to stand up and say something. The closest things to opinions from professional athletes that we've gotten are Steve Nash's t-shirt and Jennifer Capriati's pre-game request for Bombs over Baghdad.

When reporters have asked athletes about their opinions, most of them have just spewed out the safe answer, saying that they simply support the US troops. That's the easy way out. It goes without saying that we all support the troops and hope for as few casualties as possible.

What takes guts is having an actual opinion. Tell me that you support what the US is doing. Tell me you're against it. Tell me that you're undecided. Show me that you actually breathe and exist in the same universe in which I live, and you will have my utmost respect.

On ESPN's Outside the Lines on Tuesday night, Jim Brown said that professional athletes, because of their prominent position in society and their economic status, are obligated to stand up for what they believe in, to provide educated opinions on important issues. I couldn't agree more. Present day athletes have been hiding behind "it's my right to keep quiet about whatever I choose" for too long. They have become too comfortable in their posh lifestyles to risk anything by speaking out.

Carrying out the NCAA tournament in spite of the beginning of the war did nothing more than encourage these athletes to keep their mouths shut. It increases the disconnection between the real issues in the world and the ones in sports. If the bloodshed of our own citizens in Iraq does not even affect the schedule of the NCAA games, then why should athletes care to take a stand?

Something needs to be done to make athletes realize that they are actually affected by what happens in the world, and that it does actually matter if they stand up and make their opinions heard. I wish that Myles Brand had made a different decision. I wish that more athletes had the nerve to stand up and say something, and would realize that the reason they are able to live the way they do is because of strong willed men who fought for what they believed in.

I wish the games had not just gone on.