Three years ago our country, our way of life, and indeed the world, changed in a matter of hours on an otherwise bright Tuesday morning. There is no corner, no crevice, no nook of the United States of American that hasn’t felt in some way the impact of that awful day, and the horrendously malicious acts that marked it.

That includes the sporting world, which was thrown into turmoil about how to proceed. Some had to justify playing games just days after the attacks of Sept. 11; some had to grieve with the loss of coaches, teammates, and friends.

When the games could finally be played, when we could finally turn our eyes away from the wreckage in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, sports became a safe haven, a brief but happy diversion from the terrible nature of the world at the time. When the teams took the field, it was not as much a sign of moving on, as simply a sign of the stubborn hope, so characteristic of America, that we would survive, that we would still go about our daily lives.

In the three years since Sept. 11, our country has grown and changed in innumerable ways. We are more anxious about large, public gatherings, we are more serious about every possible link to terrorism, we are not as happy-go-lucky as we were on Sept. 10, and with good reason.

There is one exception, however, and that is sports.

We still play, watch, and treat our sports with the same fervor as before. The Red Sox and Yankees still sell out their games, and autumn Sundays are still filled with the cheers and excitement of professional football. Even the first Olympic Games to take place after 9/11 were marked more by their incredible competitions and athletes than the terror scares we all feared might arise in Greece. Sports, in many ways, have moved on.

The first anniversary of 9/11 was a nationwide day of grief. The names of the victims were read aloud at Ground Zero, news channels devoted almost the entire day to recapping all that happened in the wake of the attacks, and chapel bells rang here on the University of Massachusetts campus. We were again made to realize that we are a nation that grieves together. Just one year removed, Sept. 11, 2002 was a painful, somber day.

Last year, we began to move on. We didn’t all come together as one – at least not to the degree that we had one and two-years prior. We went about our daily lives. Liberals went back to bashing President Bush for the War in Iraq, conservatives went back to bashing liberals for bashing Bush, and while the images and memories of 9/11 were still etched in our minds, as they always will be, the feeling was not as sharp. For those of us who weren’t directly affected, Sept. 11, 2003 was not the same as the previous anniversary, it was not a day to drop everything and grieve, and perhaps that is a good thing.

We tend to stretch out our emotions in this country. We take a single victory, a single tragedy, and make it a week, month, or year-long affair. We attach ourselves to the details of big-time court cases. We call the poor woman “Laci,” as if we all knew her well. We talk about the latest Amber Alert victim around the water cooler, rather than do something about it. It is as if we feel such guilt for any tragedy, that even the most unknown person’s life can be thrust into the national spotlight so that we can all do our emotional penance.

So when we did finally move on, and allow ourselves to go more than a few days without thinking, writing, and crying about the events of 9/11, it might be all for the better that we could allow the most important event of the last 50 years to take its deserved place in our collective memory.

This is not to say that it was time to forget. Anyone who could possibly forget about 9/11 needs to do some serious soul-searching, for their own humanity. But to steal an unfortunate battle cry from the Bush Administration post-9/11, if we don’t get on with being Americans, with being people again, then we truly do “let the terrorists win.” We would be giving terrorists everywhere the satisfaction of knowing that the greatest country in the world could be brought down by their acts, turned into a place of anxiety, tension, and hostility.

And so, we come to the third anniversary. Saturday is the beginning of the next chapter of post-9/11 American life. There are remembrances scheduled to take place everywhere. Vigils, religious services, and other forms of public grieving will mark the day, as they should.

However, in the spirit of regaining the America that was lost on that day, we can also turn to celebratory events to further our rehabilitation. To suggest that a sporting event will heal all wounds would be shortsighted, but even on this campus, there are a number of opportunities to congregate with other people, to be joyful, to celebrate our own existence and the unique aspect of human spirit that athletes bring to the playing field.

The Massachusetts men’s soccer team plays at 1 p.m., and the football team plays under the lights at 6 p.m. The games are not going to be played in spite of the context of the day. Rather, they should be a part of it.

Few things capture the ideals of America as well as sports. Competition, hard work, and camaraderie are lessons we learn by playing games together, and they are qualities that often go hand-in-hand with the American Dream. So it is not rude or uncaring of us to attend and enjoy sports tomorrow. In fact, it is a perfect response to the acts of 9/11. Large, happy crowds of people, cheering on the home team (or the visitors, should you be visiting from Maine or Hamilton, N.Y.) are a perfect image of the good things about sport, and the good things about America.

We will never forget what happened three years ago. But perhaps, by spending tomorrow in the stands and on the field, we will be able to commemorate the day of tragedy and heroism, of sadness and courage, with the one thing that we’ve proven will never be brought down by terrorist acts: the American spirit.

Andrew Merritt is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected]