There are days when I sit down to write and I think, what do I feel passionate about, what inspires me?  Some days, it comes easy.  Other days, it takes a little effort, some internet browsing and some introspection.  Then there are days like today where I peruse the sports headlines and something else keeps tugging me back, drawing my attention away from my duties at hand only to slap me in the face and make me realize, here’s today’s passion….here’s what touches me.

What we….what I do for a living was so aptly described by Walt Maher the sports director from channel 12 back in my home town of Cincinnati when I was a young intern in 1992.  A man who I looked up to and revered told me, “It’s all BS…what we do, in the grand scheme of things…is to divert attention away from real life and then we comment on sports entertainment”.  Well my friends, today was one of those real life days. Our eyes and ears couldn’t deviate from the strife of those on the east coast and the havoc from one of the largest storms to ever rage into the upper eastern states.

The NBA started its regular season, Major League Baseball handed out its annual Gold Glove Awards, the world champion San Francisco Giants returned home to a hero’s welcome and none of it, in the grand scheme of things, matters today when 33 are dead in the U.S. alone, thousands are injured, tens of thousands are displaced from their homes and over 8.5 million people are without power. 

Sports will be here tomorrow, today we come together as a nation that was founded on survival.