2004: A Year on the Edge of Sports and War

January 23, 2005
By: Dave Zirin

2004 should be remembered as a year when the hermetically sealed divide between sports and society frayed for the first time in a generation. The year however did not begin on nearly as promising a note as sports stood in the dual shadow of Janet Jackson's right breast and FCC chair Michael Powell's own indignantly heaving bosom. Then the death of former NFL safety turned Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan seemed to morph the National Football League into a wing of the War Department churning out propaganda at a Capra-esque pace. US Troops watching NFL games were beamed in our living rooms, with one over exuberant Oakland fan holding up a red, white, and blue sign that read all too appropriately,