The Impact of sports

As we all are still trying to adjust to everything that is going on around us, I’ve been thinking about the impact sports really has on us, our city and our state. Talking to numerous people around our city this week they all had one common thing they said and that was sports have had a huge impact on their lives whether if it was from playing, coaching, or just being a fan.

In our state, we have had and still have some great sports teams, we are pretty lucky here. Just in the city of Birmingham, we have our 3 professional teams, a few great college teams, and not to mention all the great high school talent in the area. All of them have a huge impact on people, and also a huge impact on our city, that can be economically or just personally. One thing was certain when talking to people, and that was it brings us all together.

People have fun going to sporting events, for some it can be the experience of a lifetime. For the people who play the sports, that is a whole other level of impact it can have. The bonds you form, the memories you make, the travel, the lessons you learn, the happiness of a big win or even the agony of a loss. For the fans, it means coming together with people and cheering on your team, it means being apart of something, it means memories with your loved ones, it means spontaneous road trips to go watch your team when away, it means when you had a bad week and your just looking forward to your team playing and gathering with family and friends. Right now we don’t have that and it’s a sad thing truly. But I want everyone who is reading this to sit back for a second and imagine this, imagine your team coming onto that field or court and the roar of the crowd. Imagine the smells all around the stadium, imagine cheering so loud when a walk off homerun happens, a last second basket was made or a last second goal was made. Just imagine it and let that give you some hope. Hope that we may soon one day have those feelings back again.