When the Community Is Grieving

Something happened in this community that is bigger than our sport.

People outside this building are carrying something right now. The town, the school, the neighborhood — wherever this program lives — is in grief. And this team is part of that community. We don’t exist separately from it.

What does the team do when the community is hurting?

Read this passage slowly.

Let that sit for a second before you move.

Mourn with those who mourn. The instruction doesn’t say mourn only when the grief is yours. It says: when others are mourning, be present in that with them. The team that has the capacity to feel what the community is feeling — to not be so insulated by the athletic bubble that community tragedy doesn’t reach them — is the team that is actually connected to the place it represents.

Sport has a complicated relationship with community tragedy. On one hand, competition can be a unifying force — a way for a grieving community to gather around something together, to find a moment of shared experience that provides a kind of relief. On the other hand, sport can feel profoundly frivolous in the face of serious loss, and the pressure to perform normally can feel like a demand to pretend the world isn’t what it is.

Both of those things can be true at the same time. The game matters and it is also smaller than what the community is carrying. You are athletes and you are also members of this community with access to a platform that most community members don’t have.

How this team carries itself in this moment — what you say, how you play, what you acknowledge and what you ignore — says something to the community about who you are. Be the team that the community can be proud of in its hardest moments.

Vision question about the team’s role in a larger community context. The answers often produce genuine pride.