As many of you already know, Columbia, South Carolina and the surrounding areas are currently experiencing a natural disaster. Rainfall caused devastating floods throughout the Midlands. Thousands do not have clean drinking water and the damage done to the city by the floods is estimated to be in the billions. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes and lost everything they own. Multiple people tragically even lost their lives.
So you can imagine my horror when I see that people are actually angry that our Saturday football game was moved to LSU. Some people have the audacity to express their negative opinions toward our athletic department and everyone else who made this incredibly difficult decision. So, let me go ahead and share my opinion of your actions: it disgusts me. I actually feel sick to my stomach that you are complaining about how we won't be playing a football game in our home city when people have died from this tragedy. How insensitive can you be?
If you are having trouble gaining some perspective allow me to give you some. The Weather Channel reported that this is a 1,000 year flood. This means the chances of a flood like this happening every year is 1 in 1,000 or 0.1%. And it happened, right in many of our own backyards.
Just because the actual campus of the University of South Carolina doesn't look that bad, does not mean the rest of our area isn't suffering. Homes were completely destroyed, roads collapsed, dams were breached and cars were flooded. Do you really think our community has the capability of hosting a SEC football game right now? This would mean thousands of people coming to our city in addition to everyone else who are already in Columbia. Law enforcement should be assisting those in need and making sure everyone is safe on Saturday, not directing traffic or monitoring drunk people at a football game.
To have a football game in the midst of this enormous disaster would be disgraceful. What if you had lost your mother, your sister, your dad, your grandma, your best friend, or your family pet in this flood? How would you feel if your community proceeded to have a football game in the middle of your tragedy like it was no big deal? Think of all of the people suffering and how disrespectful it would be to celebrate something as trivial as football right in front of them.
We should be so thankful that LSU has invited us into their stadium. The Tigers are even allowing us to wear our home jerseys and they wear their away jerseys because they want us to feel at home. Their band is learning some of our songs including our alma mater and the football program is donating proceeds from the game to our community. How on earth can you be mad about their generosity in a time like this? Just because you can't tailgate? Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds? "Ugh. Can't believe this tragic disaster forced our football game to be moved to another city so now I have to watch it on TV! Poor me! I'm so unfortunate!" No. You're not. You are actually so incredibly fortunate that you even have the ability to watch TV because others in our community do not have that option right now. You may not be saying those exact words I just quoted, but anything you say along the lines of anger or disappointment towards the decision to move the game makes you sound so very ungrateful and insensitive.
So please stop complaining and look around you. If you have a roof over your head and clothes on your body, you should be grateful. Simply be grateful that you are still living and breathing and use that privilege to help those in our community who desperately need your help. No football game is more important than the people in our community.
