Monday, January 22, 2007

Sportsmanship!

The husband of one of my colleagues at Trinity attended the game yesterday. At some point he overheard an exchange during which a Bears fan (see photo, left) asked a Saints fan how he had made out during The Storm. The Saint replied that his home had taken in over ten feet of water, to which the Bear replied, "Too bad you didn't drown in it."

Pause here for long, horrified silence.

This was not the first, or only, story like this that I heard today. Chicago was not nice to us, in or off the field. They called us names; they hurled racial slurs; they beat us up; they told us they wished we had died in the worst natural disaster in our country's history. When did this become okay? Ten years ago, or maybe even five years ago, I might have been surprised, bowled over by such misplaced hatefulness. But not today. Today it seems yet another indignance, another reason to shake my head and vow never to let Sydney catch sight, even in passing, of anything broadcasted by the Fox News channel.


I'm sorry that we didn't win the game, but in some significant way we clearly did not lose. Let's just hope that the rest of the country doesn't hate New Orleans as intensely as the residents of Chicago clearly do.

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