I’ve written many times about the versatility of sports and how it can be a holiday tradition or a way to schedule your daily life. It can be a bonding experience for families and a way to tease friends over rivalries.

But what has always drawn me to sports were the bigger issues most people tend to look past, are afraid to converse about or simply shy away from since sports are used as an escape from reality.

Coincidently, the issues fans try so hard to avoid are deeply rooted in the culture and therefore shouldn’t be ignored.

This isn’t meant to be platitude, “think piece,” or an exposé of the seedy underbelly of athletics, but rather an acknowledgment of the uncomfortable issues now seeping its way into everyday sports conversations.

The two most interesting topics causing a rift in the sports canon are race and domestic violence. These two yield the most difficult and in-your-face responses without a lot of thought put into the logic used to dictate a response.

It happens too often where the mistreatment of women and misogyny it’s wrapped in is overlooked because of how talented the player is. Not only is there a player/girlfriend or wife dichotomy, but they also have to deal with it from fans, other women and exploitation from leagues.

Race can be the most difficult topic to discuss — especially since it’s one of the most embedded aspects of sports — but it requires a more levelheaded and educated tone of voice to dissect the preconceived notions, idioms and language the conversation embodies.

It also requires more deconstruction than this column allows and will not be addressed today. Just think of bat flipping in baseball and the bench-clearing incidents it starts, celebration dances in the NFL, or the recent protest by the University of Missouri football players.

Abuse both physical and verbal at the college level gets passed on as a common experience when it’s really an abuse of power from the coaches to the powerless athletes.

Whether it’s academic fraud at North Carolina or false accusations of rape and domestic abuse at Duke or the University of Alabama, serious issues have been apart of sports for decades. While it can provide a happy medium, it’s time to see the other side of the coin.

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Alex Swatson is a sports writer. He can be reached at alex.swatson@vicksburgpost.com