25 Years Ago This Weekend, International Sport Served As Another Moment For Cultural Healing, Just As It Still Does Today

This Thursday we had our annual sports business conference at Columbia, and once again in the search for themes, one came through. From USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland or Ed Horne, COO of On Location or Sheikha Asma Al Thani or Stanley Cup winning goaltender turned entrepreneur Mike Richter there was a clear message…sport…globally…is the unifier for people, breaking down walls and barriers and giving people pause to celebrate and excel beyond their wildest aspirations.

As we become more global in thought and actions, even in a tumultuous world, I was reminded of the lessons learned a quarter century ago from a tennis experience that served as yet another healing process in the world just after 9/11. An event a quarter century ago this weekend.

One of the short-term event casualties after the attacks was the postponement of a Davis Cup tie between the US and India that was supposed to have been a few weeks after the conclusion of the US Open, to be played at Joel Coliseum in Winston Salem, NC. While the Davis Cup is an amazing experience, it loses its place many times in the sports calendar, and 2001 was probably going to be the same thing. Interesting, engaged, fun and full of pageantry? Yes. But an event to draw the attention of the world with bigger significance?

Nope.

When the tie was postponed the timing by the powers that be came into question, as to how it could fit into a crowded schedule, especially on a college campus at Wake Forest.

However the hole in the schedule was found in mid October, and the event was scheduled. Not just was it scheduled, but it became the first international event on American soil after 9/11.

The historical significance, the nuance, the ability to uplift and piggyback off of other events that tumultuous fall, were numerous, along with the ability of two friendly nations to again use sport as a salve for the challenges all faces.

The U.S. won 4-1, with new captain Patrick McEnroe helping guide then-young Americans James Blake and Andy Roddick to a pair of singles wins each, setting the stage for the U.S. to eventually recapture the Cup a few years later.

Twenty five years have now passed, and the Open has remained one of the great sporting and entertainment events the world over. Those days leading up to 9/11 for sport in New York were full of great excitement and promise, from the Yankees heading to the World Series to the resurgent Mets and the soon to be beginning NFL seasons. However the Open of 2001 was king in New York for those two weeks, more so than ever before and they way that Davis Cup tie served as a bridge to culture has not been lost, it has only been refined time and again, through the World Cup this summer and ahead to the Olympics and so many other events in the years to come.

It is those memories which I toast , while not forgetting the those who suffered so senselessly in the days and years that have followed. It is that mix of grandeur and sadness which reminds us why we do love sport.

Sport has the ability to lift us to new heights of emotion, and provides us a respite from the every day, even the darkest of days. That mix was never more relevant than in the fall of 2001, a time for both good and bad, I will never forget.