Coach Bill Bowerman (right) with legendary runner Steve Prefontaine. (The Happy Rower/Creative Commons)

Following the attacks by Palestinians on the Israeli Olympic team at the Munich Olympics in 1972, USA track coach Bill Bowerman adressed Team USA, saying, "From 776 BC to 393 AD, Olympians laid down their arms to take part in these Games. They knew there is more honor in outrunning a man than killing him. So you must not believe that running, or jumping, or throwing are meaningless. They were your fellow Olympians' answer to war. They must be yours." 

Bowerman put it as eloquently as any man could, and his words apply not only to the Munich games but to violence against sports throughout history. On Monday afternoon, two explosive devices were set off along the route of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring 176 more. It is perhaps best to reflect on these events, and the words of Coach Bowerman, while the streets are still covered with rubble, the injured remain in the hospital and the FBI continues to search desperately for answers. 

You will be hard-pressed to find someone who does not enjoy one sport or another. Whether it be football, fishing, soccer or equestrian, humans the world over take pleasure in engaging in peaceful competition. For those skilled enough to compete, the glory and satisfaction that comes with victory is rivaled by little else in this life. For those of us who watch these competitions, we can take pride in the accomplishments of our team, our community, and our heroes. Doing so allows those who compete and those who watch to forget the real world for even a short time, and revel in the beautiful experience of sports.

At the 2010 FIFA World Cup, North Korea was welcomed to participate, having followed the qualification process just as did any other team. Despite extremely high tensions on the Korean peninsula at the time, no mention of those tensions was made during the competition. Though the North Koreans went out at the group stage, it provides one more example of what Coach Bowerman said, as even North Koreas leaders recognized that "there is more honor in outrunning a man than killing him." Their willing participation was a triumph for sports, and peace through sports.

During the First World War, one of the bloodiest and most devastating in history, an unofficial truce occurred on Christmas day between German and British soldiers. Emerging from their trenches, they sang carols and played games of soccer between each other. Finding the common ground of sports, even if for only a day, sworn enemies managed to find something to celebrate amongst all the madness and devastation taking place around them. 

Violence and killing will always exist in our world. We must not pretend as though it will not. There are those times, however, when violence must be set aside. Certainly, our wars will rage, our differences will manifest themselves as violence, and our struggles will result in the loss of human life. One place, though, that has throughout the ages provided refuge from that most horrible of human actions is athletic competition.

If we cannot respect the peaceful competition and respectful rivalry of sports, we will lose one of our last havens from the occasional bleakness that inhabits our earth. We must not forget Munich, or Boston, or Atlanta or any of the other myriad attacks on sporting events and teams. 

We must not forget the feelings that possess us following these attacks. Not the feelings of anger or hatred that follow violence in war or elsewhere, but instead the feelings of profound sadness and disdain that are specific to attacks on sports.

This sadness, these memories of such horrible events should remind us that sports are the perhaps the sole common ground that we can find between nations and between peoples.

Whether you like sports or not, believe in its value as a human escape or not, it is impossible to deny the healing, uniting power that it can provide, and thus how essential it is that we observe human decency and common sense and protect sports from the brutality that at times engulfs the rest of our species.

Reach staff writer Christopher Coppock here, or follow him on Twitter.