Sometimes sports seems pretty insignificant, huh?

After watching MSNBC’s coverage of the massacre at Virginia Tech last night, I came into work this morning completely drained. Maybe it’s because Blacksburg reminds me so much of Bloomington, Indiana where I went to school. Where all of the buildings are made from that same limestone. I pictured that incident happening at Jordan Hall or the Chemistry Building and it shook me to my core.

This tragedy, as you’d probably expect, transcends sports and strikes down to the fiber of who we are as a people. I’d expect that over the course of the next two weeks, we will see an outpouring of support for those who have lost their lives and those mourning for them.

Then the political debates will begin, which will most likely center around gun control. We will need someone or something to blame because we’ll need to make sense of something that is inherently senseless. Presidents of colleges and universities, especially those of large state universities, will look for ways to make their campuses safer, to help prevent this kind of incident in the future. But here’s the kicker: you can’t.

I didn’t feel much like blogging about the Lakers Town Hall Meeting last night, or Spurrier’s thoughts on the Confederate Flag (he’s right, by the way) or my interview yesterday with Bobby Bowden. Mike and Mike dedicated some air time to it this morning and then went on with their show because they felt people tuned in to listen to them talk about sports. Good for them. I’m just not there yet. It hit a little too close to home.

My guess is that we’ll continue to see more stories like these as the dust settled.

Gordon Luckily Not on VT Campus – Florida Times-Union

Hokie Nation Unnerved by Bloodshed – Bob Lipper – Richmond Times-Dispatch

‘I Was Kind of On the Move’ – Washington Post

Virginia Tech’s Greenberg ‘Numb’ After Tragedy – ESPN.com

Sobering Dose of Reality (the other headline was stupid) – SI.com

Coaches frantically find athletes – Roanoke Times 

If nothing else, this story illustrates the importance of user-generated content, like blogs, as a serious news source. I’m pretty sure MSNBC used the word “Facebook” 15,867 times last night. Anyway, here’s some links from some of the most poignant eye-witness accounts of what happened.

‘Safe and rather scared’

Voices from Campus – Newsweek

Collegiate Times Blog – VT’s student paper

Roanoke Times photographer Alan Kim’s photoblog on Flickr

Drumbeat of Shots, Broken by Pauses to Reload – New York Times