Well, we are going to war, or at least it looks like it.
It just so happens it is very possible the war could start right around the beginning of the men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, which first round games start Thursday. The women’s tournament starts not too far behind on Saturday.
So the question at hand is: Should the war in Iraq, which involves hundreds of thousands of Americans and their allies, put the NCAA Tournaments on hold?
NCAA President Myles Brand does not think so.
Brand said that while everyone’s thoughts and prayers should be with the men and women fighting for our country, the games must go on. He echoed the president’s wishes to go on with life as normal.
To that end, I completely agree with Brand and President Bush.
The NCAA Tournaments, both men’s and women’s, are a time of excitement for many people around the country.
There are games aired on television for three straight weekends which engulf many people’s full attention span for the duration of the tournaments.
The whole tournament culminates with the Final Four, which crowns a national champion, and on the men’s side, it is being held in New Orleans this year.
Also something to take into consideration is the impact on the economy, which is struggling, the NCAA Tournaments have. People, spending money on tickets and traveling across the country to see their teams, fork over valuable dollars that would not be easy to recover if the tournament were not to go off.
We also can’t forget the thousands of office pools around the country that keep even casual basketball fans interested.
What more could the government ask for?
Over and over again Bush has ordered Americans to go on with their lives as usual and not worry about terrorist attacks or war.
For such a big event to be going on adjacent to the war is a blessing in disguise, for it will deflect people’s attention, if only temporarily, from our country’s problems around the globe. Add that to the fact the tournament gives people a reason to be happy and rejoice for their team’s successes, and I don’t think a better distraction could be present.
Obviously if there are security concerns present for the different arenas the NCAA Tournaments take place in, the games must be put on hold.
Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security, said extra protective measures are being taken to allow people to live their lives as normal as possible.
New Orleans is lucky, if that is what you want to call it. It was the first city to host a major sporting event after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the city hosted Super Bowl XXXVI in an event that went off without incident.
So with the Final Four in New Orleans scheduled to be the first major sporting event in the country held after the beginning of the second war with Iraq, people attending the event should rest easy in the Big Easy, knowing this kind of occurrence isn’t completely new.