I’m a hopeless romantic.

Let me clarify that–I”m not a flowers and Hallmark cards and yucky love stuff romantic, but rather, I romanticize ideas and I dream about how things can be.

I”m in love with Cinderella stories and comeback kids. I dream about athletes playing sports simply because they love the game. I still think that sports can be about more than just games and competitions, that they can cause us to see things differently and can provide opportunities we wouldn”t normally have.

I love college and professional sports, and part of me still clings to the idea that they don”t have to succumb to the media and marketing circus and instead they can do some great things.

The women”s basketball team proves that sports romantics like myself still have something real to hang on to.

Before the season started, coach Jill Pizzotti told me that she loves coaching because she can use basketball as an avenue to be a teacher and a mentor to her players. Not only is basketball an avenue to reach individual players, but the team uses basketball as an avenue to reach the community.

Friday night, the women”s basketball game against Memphis was Breast Cancer Awareness night, featuring a breast cancer survivor speaking at halftime as well as informational booths from the Susan G. Komen Foundation in the lobby. Pizzotti said she was pleased that the team could use its public position as a platform for women”s issues and to do its part to help the fight against breast cancer.

Instead of quietly leaving the building immediately after the game, the entire team came back out from the locker rooms and sat down at tables where eager kids waited for autographs.

Looking at them, I couldn”t help but think, ‘This is what all sports should be like.’

At Saint Louis University, this is what sports are like. To me, that”s exciting.

In past summers, the men”s basketball team has put on basketball camps at the nearby Juvenile Detention Center for incarcerated children. This year, the women”s soccer team collected dozens of pairs of shoes to be sent overseas to Third World countries. Like the women”s basketball team, the women”s soccer team can also be found on the sidelines after games, signing autographs and talking to young soccer fans.

Seeing this at the college level, I can”t help but fantasize about what the world of sports would be like if the involvement between athletes and communities continued at the professional level. Granted, there are organizations headed and funded by athletes or sports teams, such as the Cardinal Care program here in St. Louis. Similar programs exist across the country, and many athletes do get involved in community or political issues.

But what if athletes could do more?

What if they could use their fame and stature to touch people”s lives like our own Billiken athletes? The possibilities are endless. Athletes are such high-profile members of our society, and have such tremendous voices. I”m inspired to think of what could be accomplished if those high profiles and loud voices could be directed toward the public good.

Regardless of what goes on in the world of professional sports right now, I”m happy knowing that athletes here at SLU are doing more than just playing a game–they are learning about the platforms that they as athletes have and how these platforms can be used for the good of others.