A white man in a black V-neck stood outside the Phillips Center on Thursday. On his right shoulder, he had pinned a pro-Nazi button. He proceeded to speak about how he disliked transgender people.
“If that triggers you,” he said, “then you can go cry.”
He had come to hear Richard Spencer, a white supremacist, speak at the University of Florida.
I also went, stepping out of my usual duties as a sports reporter to help cover the protests for this newspaper.
In the middle of it, in the middle of the police-lined street, the crowd chanting “Black lives matter” and “Nazi Scum” and “This is what democracy looks like,” I felt an overwhelming resentment for my day job: covering sports.
That feeling was confirmed the next day, when it was revealed the man in the black V-neck, along with two others, had been arrested after one of them shot at, and missed, a group of protestors at a Gainesville bus stop late Thursday afternoon.
Nothing like Nazis shooting up your neighborhood to put things in perspective.
That perspective? In times like these, in times of divisiveness so close to home and hatred so close to where we live and where we go to classes and where we teach and where we work, it’s OK to forget about sports for a little.
It’s OK to not tweet about Thursday Night Football. It’s OK to take a break from logging on your Twitter account to type “#FireNussmeier” at the Florida Gators football Twitter handle.
It’s OK to take a break from tweeting at a four-star recruit that he’s making a big mistake by committing to LSU.
It’s OK to put that aside and focus on things that matter. Things that aren’t decided by numbers on a scoreboard, but which have real impacts on us, our loved ones and the people around us.
I wrote something similar in a column last year. And while it bothers me that I feel the need to write this again, it seems just as important now as it was then and bears repeating.
Sports are great and lots of fun, but please, don’t be consumed by them.
Pledge to take a break from silly games when real life is happening on your doorstep. Leave the comforting escape hatch that sports provides and become involved in your community. In something other than passing yards and batting averages.
Go outside your comfort zone. Feel things other than fandom. Feel hurt. Feel joy. Feel sadness. Feel anger. And really feel them. Not at the opposing team.
Feel saddened at people who truly hate. Or happiness at people who truly love.
Because sports are great and fun and a big, silly game, but that’s all they are.
That hit me again on Thursday, and I was scared. As a Jewish American, I couldn’t help but hold back tears as I saw black swastikas drawn on a man’s shirt, a sign of such hate and barbarism that drove the movement which annihilated millions of people like me less than a century ago.
Sometimes, it’s OK to realize there are a few select things in life bigger than your fantasy football team and what your incoming, highly-rated quarterback recruit has to say about how he loves the coaching staff.
Because can’t that wait? Can’t sports always wait? Can’t they be suspended for a day or two and everything will still be OK?
They can. But some things can’t. Some things will always be there, no matter how good it feels to escape from reality into a game, no matter how your fantasy team did this weekend.
So try taking a break. Sports will still be there when you get back.
Ian Cohen is a sports writer. Contact him at icohen@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @icohneb.
Richard Spencer protesters march toward the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts holding a “Gators not Haters” sign.
