Following the ASU softball team’s win over Baylor, I had the chance to go visit the Oklahoma City bombing memorial on Sunday night. I’m glad we had time to head over there as it was definitely a great experience.
Since I was five years old at the time of the bombing, I wasn’t too familiar with the details surrounding the events of April 19, 1995. The memorial was constructed where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood. There is a large reflecting pool, 168 chairs with the names of those killed in the bombing, and several other fascinating aspects of the memorial. Of those 168 chairs, 19 of them are smaller and represent the children who were killed. It's obvious that thousands of people were negatively impacted by this terrible event.
Anyways, I think seeing the memorial and learning more about the bombing incident really puts things in the right perspective. There are clearly more important things in life than softball, the WCWS, or all sports for that matter.
ASU softball coach Clint Myers recently commented on how there are more important things than just softball.
I thought it was pretty interesting. Here’s what he had to say.
“You look at these two seniors and ask them the difference in maturity of what four years makes. There’s a lot of lessons, and it’s not just softball. It’s life. I mean at the end of the day this is a game. What we can give these people to make them good people for the rest of their lives and actually have a meaningful existence and being role models and have great family values and everything else. I mean that’s really important, and winning a championship along the way doesn’t hurt, but those are goals. These are the standards. These are the things that are really important.”
I was pretty impressed with Coach Myers’ thoughts on that. He’s reiterated those beliefs several times to me throughout the season. Good stuff.
I took a few pictures of the memorial with my basic digital camera. I put one up of something a rescue team wrote on a nearby building during the search and rescue efforts. Sorry about the poor quality. There’s a reason I’m not a photographer.
