Coupeville Sports

     The Coupeville High School girls’ basketball team takes the court tonight at 5:15 PM, followed by the Wolf boys’ squad at 7. (Shelli Trumbull photo)

Basketball is not the world.

The kids who play the game — that’s the world.

On a day when all the talk is understandably about the tragedy in Connecticut, everyone is affected. For those of us in Washington state, sitting on the other side of the country, we may not know people involved. We may not be able to put a name and a face to all those who have been lost.

But we honor them. We are thankful for the children and the teachers who made it home this afternoon, and we mourn those who did not.

It will take a very long time, if it ever happens, for that town to recover. Mental illness or evil, whichever it turns out to be, robbed Sandy Creek Elementary, and the world, of one more bit of happiness.

It has happened before, too many times and too many places. It, unfortunately, may happen again. Schools do everything possible to safeguard children, but there is no easy answer to permanently ward off mental illness and evil.

But we go on, because we have to. There is no other way.

When Coupeville and South Whidbey take the floor tonight for basketball games, the tragedy will be on everyone’s minds. How can it not be?

Whether Coupeville wins or whether Coupeville loses its games tonight ultimately doesn’t matter that much.

Victories buoy a school, its players and its fans for a moment. At the best of times, memories are made that endure, memories that make us who we are as a town and as people.

Winning or losing won’t change what happened in the real world.

But we play on, because by playing, we embrace a better way.

We refuse to give in to illness and evil. We celebrate the positive things our town’s children, any children, accomplish. We come out of our homes and come together and refuse to give in to fear.

Whether it’s basketball, as it is tonight, or a school concert, as it was last night, we are better for the effort when we refuse to be bowed — we stand taller as a town, as a country, as a world.

Be safe. But be brave.

There is more goodness in this world than evil, and goodness has to stand tall.

Hug your child. Teach them there is a better way. Come out and sit on the rock-hard bleachers for four hours tonight and cheer for a kid — your kid, your neighbor’s kid, a kid you’ve only seen in passing as they buy a pop at PC —  because, by doing so, you make a statement.

It may be a small statement in the grand scheme of things, but it matters.

We will not give in. We will go on. We will endure.