When the Miami Heat players
and coaches showed up for work Saturday morning, basketball was secondary.
Friday's massacre at an elementary school in
Newtown, Conn., was the primary topic of discussion among the Heat, even though
they were gathered to finish prepping for a Saturday night game against
Washington. It's rare for anything to overshadow basketball on the Heat
practice court, but clearly, this was not going to be a typical day.
"Basketball, this is nothing," Heat
forward LeBron James said. "These games are nothing compared to when you
have a tragedy like that. It sucks that sometimes you need a tragedy to put
things back in perspective, to appreciate what you have. But it does that to
people. It's unfortunate that you have to have something like that to
understand what's really important and some things that aren't important at
all.
Family is the No. 1 important thing in life."
That doesn't mean they
weren't affected, like countless others. Moments of silence were observed
before many games.
In Memphis before tipoff of a
college basketball game against Louisville, a moment of silence was observed
for the victims and for 32-year-old Memphis police officer Martoiya Lang, a
mother of four children, who was shot and killed on Friday. Public address
announcer Chuck Roberts struggled and his voice choked up a bit as he said the
Memphis officer's name. And he finished after the moment ended with
"Amen."
In England, the Queens Park
Rangers soccer team wore black armbands at the request of its players during a
Premier League match against Fulham. Chelsea captain John Terry on Instagram
said "So So Sad" beneath a picture of a candle, and he urged prayers
for school. Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany tweeted: "Giving guns
to everyone to 'protect' their home or fighting to get rid of all the guns? How
many more Newtons will it take?"
Moments of silence were
everywhere, from a minor-league hockey game in Hershey, Pa.; a U.S. women's
soccer exhibition match in Boca Raton, Fla.; and at golf's Father-Son Challenge
in Orlando, Fla., where all players and caddies wore black ribbons to honor the
victims.
More tributes — many more —
are coming from the sports world over the next few days. It's expected that all
NFL games this weekend will be preceded by tributes, such as moments of silence
and helmet decals. The New York Giants and New York Jets both plan to wear the
letters S.H.E.S., for Sandy Hill Elementary School, on their helmets this
weekend. And the New England Patriots will light flares for each of the 26
people killed at the school.
"Our thoughts and
prayers are with all the people impacted by that tragedy," Jets coach Rex
Ryan said Saturday. "It's, wow, it's amazing. ... Just a horrific deal
that happened there."
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has
shopped at the Clackamas Town Center, a mall in his native Oregon where a
gunman killed two people Tuesday and then himself. One of Dwyane Wade's nephews
was shot last March in Chicago, where gun violence is a major topic of
discussion. Ray Allen attended the University of Connecticut, still calls it
"my state" and expressed shock as he tried to collect information
about Friday's events.
Spoelstra typically comes
into the Heat interview room after game-day practices and makes a brief
statement about injury situations or what the team worked on that particular
day.
"We talked about it as a
team today and our thoughts and prayers are with the families and the
community," Spoelstra said. "Horrific tragedy in Connecticut. We took
some time to give our thoughts and prayers to them.
"It's despicable,"
he added. "It's a horrific tragedy. And it doesn't matter whether you have
family or not or kids or not, you can't relate to a tragedy like that."
Spoelstra said he monitored news reports on the
Internet until late Friday night. James was getting updated on the day's events
even as the Heat were visiting sick children in a pair of Miami hospitals on
Friday afternoon, after which he immediately went home and hugged his own sons,
neither of whom is likely old enough to comprehend what took place inside that
Newtown school.
"Just having two kids of
my own, in elementary, I could not imagine sending them off to school and them
not returning," James said.
Haslem has three sons, and
said he tried telling his oldest boy that "things happen in this world
that we have no control over."
"You take it one day at
a time. You're never going to forget about it. Time heals the wounds,
slowly," Haslem said. "I still grieve over my friends. I still grieve
over my family members I've lost. Slowly, slowly, it gets a little bit — not a
lot — but a little bit easier.
"We love the money, we
love the fame, we love the sport, but at the end of the day, we do this for our
kids and the legacy to give them things you never had," Haslem said.
"If it was about us, a lot of us would have retired after our first
contract. You do this for your kids. Your kids are everything. My three kids
are my heart. I just imagine someone taking my heart away from me. Might as
well kill me."
Whose possessors
slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say,
Blessed [be] the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
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Which justify the
wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
Deuteronomy 28:43-44
43 The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low.
44 He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.
Ezekiel 16:30
30 How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;
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