Daily News | After shocking death of soccer writer Grant Wahl in Qatar, here’s how to honor his life
he gave to younger journalists whom someone with his stature could have easily blown off, and the respect for his bold stands on issues, even from folks who sometimes disagreed with him.
But I think even more significant is what he meant to the legion of American soccer fans — like me — who didn’t know Wahl but who desperately needed someone like him, an evangelist for the sport who understood its grace on the pitch but also the broader role that it plays in this crazy, mixed-up world.
this weekend, praised Wahl as the “moral backbone” of American soccer journalism, then added: “I think everyone who loves the sport in the United States has at some point felt like an outsider — you try to talk about soccer and the people around you don’t really get it — so when you find people who do get it and do love it, there’s a real connection there.”
So his loss leaves a real void. It also triggers the human desperation to explain something that simply cannot be explained. It’s no wonder that so many seek out conspiracy theories, because somehow that is less frightening than the more likely possibility that a healthy 48-year-old man suddenly got sick and died. That said, I do think there are a couple of significant — albeit very different from each other — ways that we can learn from his too-short-yet-significant life.
The first is that all who love the sport of soccer — certainly those with the loudest voices such as officials, players and the writers and commentators tasked with carrying on his legacy, but also the everyday fan — need to pick up the torch from Wahl.