Zachary Levine: Now isn't the time to talk sports

As my editors requested, I had my column for this week written 24 hours in advance.

It was, of course, about sports. And it was, as my columns often are, a joke both in substance and tone.

But this morning is not a time for joking. This morning isn't even a time for sports.

Maybe I'm just not trained well for this job, but I don't know how I'm supposed to sit here and analyze last night's game when there were 33 students at Virginia Tech who couldn't watch the game and will never be able to watch another one.

Or how I'm supposed to make a joke when there are 33 students who will never be able to laugh again and whose families won't for a long time.

It's common in this industry to call our section the "toy department" of the newspaper, and on days like yesterday I finally start to believe it.

But why yesterday?

After all, 33 deaths would be a good day in Iraq. Thirty-three is nothing compared to the number of people, or even the number of children, who die every day of AIDS or starvation. Or the number we lose every day to cancer or heart disease.

Maybe this just hits me hard because it could have been me.

Maybe one of the kids who was senselessly lined up and murdered was the sports columnist for the Virginia Tech newspaper. Maybe it was somebody who, like me, had just landed a dream job and was looking forward to all the great things a new life had to offer - a life that he'll never even see begin.

I do know that, like I did yesterday, they went to class at 10 a.m., which was their only sin.

Our campus endured such a struggle 18 months ago after the suicide of then-senior Kyle Ambrogi. That was one member of our community. I can't even imagine losing 33. And I can't even begin to imagine analyzing a sporting event right now.

But it's my job at this newspaper to write about sports, so I'll close by writing about sports.

Sunday night, I watched with delight as Taylor Pyatt banged home the game-winning goal and the Vancouver Canucks, the team I adopted from 3,000 miles away, defeated the Dallas Stars in overtime.

I was so excited that after class I pulled up NHL.com and watched the highlights, even though I saw every moment live.

Then I heard the real news.

And all of a sudden, I couldn't understand why it was so important to me that the guys in the white sweaters whom I've never met put the puck by the goalie in the green sweater whom I've never met.

Sports does this to us. Makes it about green versus white.

Even when sports serve as a mirror for society, as it has with Don Imus, Duke lacrosse and Jackie Robinson Day, it's often about black and white.

Today, we're not black, not white and not green. We're all maroon and orange. Not just for a day, not just for a week, but for however long the healing takes.

And sometime, even with the healing far from complete, sports will go on. The Hokies will take the field again, albeit with heavy hearts. I'll write my column later on, and I hope that by then we'll be ready to laugh.

It just doesn't feel right today.

Zachary Levine is a senior mathematics major from Delmar, N.Y., and is former Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is zlevine@sas.upenn.edu.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.