Forget the jokes, the truth hurts

Two days ago, I got an urgent message from my friend Stephanie, who wanted to know if I had gotten any death threats yet. And if not, she wanted to know if the reason I wasn't answering my phone was because I was, at the time, being held in a headlock.\nLater that night, I went to my other job at the SRSC, where I was asked if I had gotten any scathing e-mails, or anyone knocking on my front door yet. The guy told me that he would not have been able to write what I wrote. \nWhich led me to ask, what is it really that I did? Wrote the truth? Sorry to have to go back to the old cliche, but it's true that the truth hurts.\nAnd for the members of the IU football team, the truth doesn't just hurt, it burns, stabs and maims what they do on the football field. The score, the statistics and I don't lie. And the bottom line, is that I don't seek out every negative aspect of the football team, they have handed that to me on a decorated platter for the past two weeks. \nBut today, the difference with this column is that I am writing this on the one year anniversary of the gravest day in American history, and talking about the upcoming Kentucky game seems trivial compared to what is going on in the nation surrounds us. \nAnd I don't have the heart or the strength to write anything that could add to the hurt going on this week.\nYesterday, while searching through the IU athletic Web site, I came across reflections of the IU athletes on the Sept. 11 anniversary, and three of the football players had given their thoughts on the day.\nSenior safety Joe Gonzalez offered his thoughts, prayers and wishes for world peace in his moment of contemplating Sept. 11. Last year, a day after the attacks, Gonzalez said that if his country needed him to fight in the at-the-time imminent war, he said he would be there, and knew that many of the other guys on the team would do the same.\nNewly named starting quarterback Gibran Hamdan professed his love of America, for the freedoms Americans enjoy and his praise for the men and women engaged in battle so that the U.S. citizens can enjoy those freedoms.\nSenior offensive lineman Enoch DeMar urged everyone to "keep those who passed in your hearts and memories forever."\nYesterday, the team record didn't matter. It didn't matter that the IU team was going to have its hands full against their upcoming Kentucky opponent and the Wildcats beefy quarterback Jared Lorenzen. None of the serious doubts surrounding the football team are relevant in this community or this country right now.\nAnd the football team, realizing this, took the time to share their thoughts on a day when America was hurting. Perhaps, despite not living up to IU's expectations of them as a worthy football team, the football players have shown that they aren't completely wrapped up in themselves and the game they play. Perhaps IU students, fans and myself should respect them for the way they carried themselves off the field during this somber time.\nNow let me be completely straight forward. My current state of respect and optimism given to the team today doesn't mean that next Tuesday, if the team plays as atrociously as it has in the past two weekends, will I be any less truthful about the ugliness of the teams play.\nBut for today, I see nothing wrong with adding a little optimism to a hurting community and a hurting team.\nAnd that is the honest truth.