- The moments in and around the game that are bigger than the game itself.
- The speeches to teammates and fans that are larger even than the game itself.
- The moments when sports is used as a platform for bigger social conversations.
- The thrilling moments from your childhood that you never forget.
- The tender moments among teammates.
It’s why we watch. It’s why we play. It’s the stuff that rises up out of sports and settles down into us.
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Today’s Heart of Sports comes from outside a barbershop in Cincinnati, where a white police officer was called to investigate a group of black men who were hanging out there. The story is told below by Shaka Senghor on Facebook.
“Jerome Bettis came out and the officer stood there with his mouth agape before saying “if my dad was still alive he would be so excited, because you were his favorite player”. We all stopped and sat in the moment before they went on to take a selfie together. It was one of those moments that reminded me of our humaneness, our frailties and our similarities. In that moment we were all just men navigating the world without the mask we are taught and trained to wear. I could have taken my offense to the call out on the officer and accused him of being a racist cop. He could have believed the caller and acted based on stereotypes about black men in groups. But we chose to just see each other and talk like humans. It’s ultimately a decision we can all make. When he lit up like a kid at seeing his dad’s sports hero, I saw a little boy and the uniform no longer mattered. We can collectively choose to see beyond the uniforms we all wear. It’s not easy and there is a lot of work to be done, but if we can at least start seeing each other, I believe things will get better.”
See the entire story below:
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Photo Credit: Ernest Sisson, Jr.