Sports fans – and, even more so – sports journalists were shocked Sunday to learn of the death of Reggie White, former all-world defensive end for the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles. White, 43, died of what appears to have been a massive heart attack. For once, it is safe to say, that a sports legend did not die young because of drugs or violence.

He was a man much greater than his football legacy: through his Christian life and witness, Reggie White touched thousands, perhaps millions of people. It is only fitting that he would die from a “massive” heart attack: his heart for God and people was enormous, and no “small” heart attack would have affected him a bit.

But more eloquent tributes to White can be found elsewhere. This is about others. Nameless others.

Josef Stalin said, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” Nowhere, perhaps, is this more clear than in the deaths of White and 77,000-plus*.

I was watching an NFL pre-game show yesterday on ESPN (my favorite televangelist hadn’t come on yet) when, right in the middle of the show, Chris Berman stopped and said that there was sad news to report. Tragedy had struck, the sort that puts games into perspective for a nanosecond or so. I waited somewhat expectantly, wondering if he was going to mention the (at the time) 10,000 or more people who had lost their lives in southeast Asia as a result of a massive earthquake. Was human suffering 10,000 miles away going to impinge on sports?

Of course, he was referring to the death of White, not the (for now, at least) 77,000* people whose lives had been snuffed out in an inescapable, two-story wave of sea water that swept over the homes, business, schools, and hospitals of several countries. He reported on the “single death,” not the “statistic.”

I was not surprised but I was saddened. Somehow, it seems to me, we just don’t seem to get it.

White was a father, husband, son, brother, friend, and teammate. Many will miss him, but only a small group of family and close friends are directly touched by his death. Halfway around the world, there are more than 21,000 fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends, colleages, classmates, patients, and fellow human beings that have left behind hundreds of thousands who will miss them. These were people with smiles and eyes, like you and me. They were old and young, pretty and not-so pretty, happy and sad, thin and fat. People like me, and people like you.

And while the survivors – who are also people just like us – while these men, women, girls, and boys are missing their loved ones, they have to figure out where to get safe water to drink, where to sleep at night, and where to begin to put their lives back together. They can’t change the channel or get involved in a football game in an hour or so.

If you had any emotional reaction to the death of Reggie White, imagine feeling that sense of loss at least once a day for the next 77,000 days of your life, one day for each death in southeast Asia. You’ll have to live an additional 211 or so years to do that. And each day should be flavored with the same twinge of sadness or wave of sorrow that Reggie White’s death may have prompted in you.

None of this is meant to diminish the death of Reggie White. His sudden demise is certainly a tragedy. But so, too, is what happened around the global corner a tragedy. It is 77,000-plus personal, individual tragedies. Just because it happened on an incomprehensible scale does not lessen the horror. We need to not only remember that, but to feel it, too.

UPDATE: Asterisks indicate death totals as of December 29.

Some Perspective:

Assuming a modest funeral for Reggie would cost around $10,000, to give the victims of the tsunami comparable burials would run you about $770,000,000.

Or, since most burial plots are around 5′x8′, it would take 40 sq. feet to bury Reggie White, and over 3,000,000 sq. feet to bury the vicims. That’s the equivalent of more than 53 football fields, including the endzones.

Or, if you had to drive from Philadelphia to Green Bay and back (1,950 miles/30 hours @ 65 mph) to attend Reggie’s funeral, you would have to drive to the sun and halfway back for a comparable distance for the victims. And, to make the trip in 30 hours, you would have to average just over 5,000,000 mph. If you could only go 18,000 mph – the speed of some missiles – you could make it in just under a year (about 50 weeks nonstop).

Or, finally, imagine that someone gave you a free gallon of gas because of Reggie’s death and also one gallon for each of the tsunami victims. You could drive for 15 minutes or so (15 miles) in your SUV as a result of one death, but from the tsunami victims you could drive for the next 38.5 years (1,155,00 miles) without having to buy gas again (assuming 30,000 miles a year).

Again, none of this is meant in any way to detract from the tragedy of White’s death; it is meant to put things in a better perspective.


2 Cor 1:13