Sidelines
WHAT can you ask them? What good would it do to interrupt their peace as they trudge home through the dew after early morning workouts? What could they possibly say? These questions we face are too big for any of us. Games not important,
and yet they areHawaii football players are like anyone else. They feel what we feel. They've watched what we have watched.
Do they know more than we know? They're college football players. They're young men. Should we burden them with the problems of the world?
What can coaches say? Or administrators? Or spokesmen? Or people on the street?
Why do we turn to them for sound bites in times of crisis?
Was there really anyone sitting there watching Tuesday's madness and saying to themselves, "Wow ... I wonder what Tiger Woods thinks about this?"
(Judging by the next day's papers, apparently there was.)
We're all looking for answers. Everyone keeps talking about what we're going to tell the kids. What can we tell the children? How are we going to explain it to the children?
The kids will be fine. They have recess and ice cream and Scooby Doo. They're kids.
How are we going to explain it to ME?
Are athletes and coaches any more astute than the rest of us when they watch these pictures? No. So we leave them to their thoughts, to the last few seconds of their escape from updates. To their smiles and their sweat. To their work and their camaraderie.
Sometimes it feels as if UH's season will never really start, they'll never play a game, but on this day practice is all anyone needs. Their preseason fatigue is gone and their Maui pain is fading and it seems as if everyone in green is somehow refreshed. Invigorated. They plunge into practice, running, drilling, laughing with gusto. With life.
IT WAS weeks ago now, before the season and before the tears, that offensive line coach Mike Cavanaugh talked about this:
"There's too many things that happen ... we've had kids' parents die, we've had ... there's so many tragedies today that, life's short. I mean, I lost my whole ... you, you lose a lot of people.
"You'd better be able to laugh, because if you can't, life's short and ... I guess you've got to live life to the fullest, you know?"
This is just a game, we have said. It's not important at all. And yet it is. Through this game, they are alive. They are living.
The final horn sounds, and June Jones gathers his people around him. They kneel, and he speaks. It's a bright September morning and they are a football team and practice is over and it all feels good, so good.
They know more than we do, after all. This is how we will rebound, all of us. There is renewal in the warm morning sun.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com