My senior year of high school we finally won our league track & field championships.

I competed in four events - the maximum allowed. They were all distance events: 4×800M, 800M, 1600M and 3,2000M. I won all of them and contributed enough points to the team total to help us win the overall championship.

This was the first time I experienced the power sports has to bring people together. My high school had some difficulties handling its racial diversity. On the track and field team, the racial divide ran between the distance runners and the sprinters/field athletes. They dominated the team under the football coach who highly encouraged his players to participate in the spring.

Generally, relations were not as negative on the team as they were through the rest of the school. The distance runners were left on their own and more or less ignored by the team. In turn we made no effort to interact with them.

Until, at the league championships my senior year, we all took turns winning and placing in race after race, event after event. Together, as a team, we counted the running point totals and cheered for each other.

I remember thinking what a shame it was that we had to listen to the announcer to know the names of our teammates. And how amazed I was that for the first time we were.

I have no illusions that sports alone can bring world peace or solve deep societal issues. The league championships was just a small moment in time. But since my senior year of high school, I have always appreciated the power sports does have to help form small connections - between high school seniors who’d avoided each other for four years, or athletes in the Olympic Village competing for nations that are at war with each other.

It is the aspect of sports that is most significant to me.