What’s the role of sports in tragedy?

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Let’s examine the role of sports in tragedy. If it has a role. If anything is expected beyond warm gestures and group hugs, like the Panthers having a heartfelt pre-game ceremony or the Marlins playing host to Marjory Stoneman Douglas teams.

You can take a role call that way. Dolphins players attended a community vigil in the immediate aftermath. Heat players put a “MSD” patch on their jersey, just as PGA golfers pinned a ribbon on their hats at The Honda Classic.

Tiger Woods heard a Douglas student was watching at the driving range Thursday and talked to him before Thursday’s round. Marlins, Panthers and Dolphins players have talked with similar students in their worlds, too.

“All the players, their hearts are in the right place this week,” announcer Bob Papa said Friday on The Golf Channel.

Yes, every heart on every team is directed to compassion and sympathy. It’s been nice. Maybe that’s the role for sports. The cliche you kept hearing is this tragedy “puts sports in perspective.” As if anyone needs 17 people murdered to keep sports in perspective.

But now that the initial wave of emotion has passed, along with the hug of community support given by our teams, it’s fair to ask a more uncomfortable question.

Is that it?

A hug? An emotional speech? An in-remembrance patch?

Will any team or player, for instance, take up the cause of the #NeverAgain students for gun control? Should they?

“If you’re not with us, you’re against us, and you’re against saving the lives of innocent children,” Douglas senior Chris Grady said this past week to politicians. “And we are going to be voting you out.”

Here’s where things turn from warm and fuzzy remembrances to the complicated and uncomfortable real world for sports. Give a hug, sure. But make yourself a centerpiece of attention in a way that offends some people — some paying fans, in this case, who may turn on you?

You saw what happened when four Dolphins players took a knee during the national anthem in protest of blacks being shot by police. That became these players’ identity. It affected their work on some level — even if that level was just being asked if it affected their work.

A couple of players tip-toed to the edge of joining the students, like the Heat’s Dwyane Wade in discussing the aftermath and Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo in making an emotional, on-ice speech.

“I’m very, very proud of you guys,” Luongo said of the #NeverAgain students. “You guys are brave. You guys are an inspiration to all of us and, at the end of the day, you guys are what’s giving us hope for the future.”

He also said: “It’s time for us as a community to take action. It’s enough. Enough is enough. We’ve got to take action.”

Later, asked what he meant by that, he deferred to a general, “Whatever it takes.” And that’s fine. It really is. No one should be asked or outed into supporting a cause. That’s not the intent here.

The intent is simply to wonder what happens when the warm-fuzzies of support are gone … now that they’re gone. Has sports fulfilled its duty? Are we all good with a patch, a memory and … play ball?

Across the sports nation, only Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr and Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James took a stand on assault weapons.

“We have a kid who wasn’t legally able to buy a beer at a bar, but he can go buy an AR-15?” James said. “It doesn’t make sense. I’m not saying it should be legal for him to go buy beer. But how is it possible that we can have minors go buy a gun?”

The #NeverAgain cause only works if people join. And they are. In a few days, the students have forced town hall meetings, got commitments from politicians, led advertisers to leave the NRA, raised millions for the cause, organized a gun-control march and refuted lies that led to apologies and a Florida politician’s aide being fired.

“Shut up and dribble,” FOX talkshow host Laura Ingraham told LeBron after he criticized President Donald Trump.

What she meant was have vigils, emotional nights, community hugs, wear ribbons on jerseys in general support — but it’s not sports place to do or say anything substantive. She may be right.

But I’m with the #NeverAgain students.