Football: It’s only a game

The Gadsden (Ala.) Times: Quick, look out the window. Your favorite football team won its season opener sometime over the weekend and all is right with the world. Even if your team lost, the sun still came up. You still have to go to work.

The important thing is that you keep your perspective. Football, even in the great state of Alabama, is a game. Nothing more.

Already, in the early days of this season, we’ve heard commentators talk about “catastrophic” fumbles and “disastrous” penalties. We beg to differ. Real catastrophes and disasters rarely take place on the football field. Sadly, they do happen in real life. All too often. Look toward the Gulf Coast, where people in Mississippi and Louisiana are cleaning up the soggy, sopping mess left by Isaac. There wasn’t the loss of life wrought seven years ago by Hurricane Katrina, but areas left untouched by Katrina have suffered real devastation.

Football, and other sports, can provide a wonderful diversion from real life, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with losing yourself in a game for a couple of hours. Heck, it could even be healthy to do so.