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Imrem: Security concerns always present at sports venues

Today's subject is one that sports fans generally would prefer to leave in the recesses of their minds.

Stadium security.

Presumably all the athletes, families and fans that want to be are safely out of Brazil.

Whew!

A sign of our times is that what doesn't happen on any given day is more significant than what does happen.

Like, terrorists didn't blow up anything during the Rio Olympics.

Now anxieties can revert to sports events and facilities back in the United States and more specifically back to Chicago.

We can only hope to be as fortunate as Rio was.

Fans would rather pass through the turnstiles in blissful denial. It's like if they don't think of the worst, it won't happen.

Sorry, not me. My new normal, as an ancient wimp, is being jitterish every time I go to a game.

If sports are life with the volume turned up, the Olympics are sports screeching.

Events in Rio were blown - no, not up - out of proportion because that's what happens at the Olympics.

Just ask Ryan Lochte, the American swimmer who became an international embarrassment for exposing himself as a 32-year-old teenager.

Attention makes the Olympics (put your hands over your ears, kiddies) a prime terrorist target, but (OK, put them down) nothing happened.

The fear before the Games began was that security in Brazil was so inadequate that a suicide bomber could blow stuff up.

Didn't happen, thank goodness, for whatever reason.

I'm not a big fan of the Olympics, catching only a little rugby, some of the golf, a bit of the gymnastics, a few minutes of the basketball finals.

My primary interest was whether tragedy would strike.

Terrorism is a major concern at every major sporting event now, here and there and everywhere, regardless of whether we want to acknowledge it.

Fortunately, teams and leagues aren't in denial.

The day of the opening ceremonies in Rio, an email arrived with the subject line, "ENHANCED NFL SECURITIES COME TO SOLDIER FIELD."

The first sentence read, "In an effort to ensure the safety of all guests entering Soldier Field, every patron attending a Chicago Bears home game will now enter through upright metal detectors and all carry-in items will be searched."

The day after the Olympics' closing ceremonies, Northwestern announced their new guidelines "to maximize fan comfort and safety."

It's a pain to have to go to a football game in the 21st century. It's a pain that you can't bring this or that into the stadium. It's a pain to have to show up early to navigate the process.

But it's a comforting pain.

I spent a couple of decades covering sports events around the country when you just flashed a media credential and walked past a drowsy usher sitting at the gate.

Now the ushers are wide-awake security guards overseeing safety measures like metal detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs, bag searches and pat-downs.

I have come to appreciate the inconveniences at Soldier Field, Wrigley Field, the United Center and U.S. Cellular Field because they're better than the alternatives.

We have some major events coming up in Chicago - Cubs playoffs among them - and hopefully like Rio we'll be able to say that we enjoyed what didn't happen as much as what did.

mimrem@dailyherald.com

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