Don E. Reno

Dear Farid, Although I am a huge fan, I cannot agree with your attitude concerning politics and sports. Competition in sports, whether soccer (or football, baseball, basketball, hockey, track and field, etc.) is the only true and honest event one can see on TV or social media. Apart from the escape into the fiction of movies, it is the honest person’s only breath of fresh air amidst the spin of advertisements and the lies of politics. The Olympic Ideal was and is to keep sports separate from political events—as the squabbling Greek polises did with truces for their Olympic Games. Perhaps the most poignant example of this was the famous “Christmas Truce” when soldiers from opposing armies came out of their trenches during the First World War to play soccer for a spell. In this season of fellowship and good will, we should remember the true spirit of sports. ---Don E. Scheid