The most meaningful stories happen in real life

​Behind the scenes of social media, there is often a world taking place that looks nothing like the the world playing out on Facebook or Instagram or pick your platform.

Several weeks ago, a high profile football game took place. Not many people saw it coming. Colorado versus Colorado State hasn't been must watch TV outside of the state of Colorado in forever.

It became high profile because Colorado's new high profile coach, Coach Prime, brings attention wherever he goes. He'd be the first to tell you that's on purpose. He seeks attention, because with attention comes influence.

With influence comes the opportunity to change lives.

And culture.

During this rivalry game, one of Colorado State's players, Henry Blackburn, put a vicious hit on Colorado's star player, Travis Hunter. A hit that lacerated Hunter's liver, which is projected to leave him sidelined for a few weeks.

In the aftermath of the hit, social media exploded with ugliness. People called the hit dirty. Blackburn and his family received death threats. A young kid suddenly became a hated villain in the Colorado Cinderella story.

The hit was aggressive. It was late. It was worthy of a penalty.

But it was also the kind of hit you see every Saturday and Sunday on football fields across America. Football's a violent sport; I don't think I'm the first to figure that out. But the hit wasn't remotely out of character for the game of football, which made it a little reckless to use it to judge the character of the kid landing the hit.

In the aftermath, as social media ran with its narrative, Hunter and Blackburn were connecting by phone. Blackburn to check on Hunter's health, Hunter to say it's all part of the game.

Let's move on.

So they moved on. And last week made a video. In the video, Hunter said he felt the hit was a blessing, because it gave two players the chance to come together and show the world that behind the scenes of a game, there are people.

Real live people living out real live stories that don't always look like the stories portrayed on social media.

I love social media. It offers such beautiful opportunities to spread light to dark in places and with speed once unimaginable.

But it also offers the opposite. It makes it easy to paint over light with dark. Which sells. Because it's often our human nature to be drawn to stories of hated villains than to stories built on forgiveness and love.

I don't always understand that about our nature, but it is indeed too often our nature.

So we need these reminders. This influence. This change. From two kids playing a game. A reminder that it IS just a game. And life is never about the game, it's about the people playing it.

It's about the kind of character and humanity the game brings out of us.

The kind of character and humanity happening between real life people in real life situations, not the people talking about those lives and situations on social media.