by Bob Swanson

Created on: September 19, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

From the Olympics to Monday Night Football, sports bring us together as a society. No matter your race, gender, age, ethnicity, or religion, sports is our common bond. In times of racism and hatred, the American society use sports as a crutch. We can always lean on professional and even collegiate and high school sports for comfort.

Professional sports has for what seems like forever had a strangle hold on the American society. It seems almost every day of the week there is a sport that we as Americans can watch and enjoy. Everyday of the week we can watch baseball. On Friday nights we can watch boxing. Saturday we have college football and the NFL on Sunday afternoons.

Sports unite America by the simple fact that on game day, your religion doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the color of your jersey, not your skin. It doesn't matter if you are from Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. When you are rooting for your team, the rest of your fellow fans are your brothers and sisters. Even if you love the Red Sox and your neighbor is a Yankee fan, at the end of the day you have a love for baseball.

In the 1970's when the only thing that mattered was whether you were black or white, baseball united us. Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron threw race wars aside and brought America together with the love of baseball. Today in 2008, in the middle of a heated presidential election, the Olympics united us. No one cared whether you were a democrat or a republican, for McCain or Obama. The only thing that mattered was that Michael Phelps won and the basketball team got the gold.

Sports have and most likely always will be the common bond that all Americans share. In a country so diverse in almost every way, sports are our common bond. The American society can always lean on sports in their time of need. Professional sports may not win elections, clean our streets, or even lower gas prices. What they do is unite the most diverse country in the world. Diversity does not matter when you are staring down a batter or reading a defense. Race and religion don't matter when you are on the ropes in the tenth round. Culture and ethnicity don't matter when you are down by 2 in overtime. All that matters is that teams and fans have to come together when it matters, regardless of diversity. Sports don't just make a large impact on the American society. They are essential for such a diverse environment to succeed.

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