On the heels of Chicago’s loss to Rio de Janeiro for the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, a newspaper editorial encouraged Mayor Richard Daley to keep his talented and high-energy bid committee on the field with a new assignment: harness the energy and community enthusiasm that the Olympic bid generated and attack critical community challenges such as public education, crime and under-funded transportation and other public assets.

Now consider the excitement that surrounded the announcement that Indianapolis won the right to host the 2012 Super Bowl. Some will assert that this announcement is simply the logical result of long-term strategic plans put in place over 30 years ago when the Indianapolis and Indiana sports strategy was born.

There’s even more to come. Over the past year or so, considerable time and attention have been invested in planning for sporting events in 2010, 2011 and 2012, when this community will see a line-up unlikely to be repeated anywhere: Big Ten Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments in 2010, 2011 and 2012; 2010 NCAA Men’s Final Four and 2011 NCAA Women’s Final Four; 2012 PGA BMW Championship at Crooked Stick; and, of course, the 2012 Super Bowl.

Like Chicago, Indianapolis and Indiana also should consider how to channel the interest in these sporting events in a way that will make this community and state an even better place to live, work and raise a family.

No doubt we will be very proud as thousands visit our city, and millions more watch on TV, over the next three years. Many of us will gladly put on volunteer uniforms and donate countless hours along the way. There also will be specific community programming, including the impressive legacy project planning under way by the 2012 Super Bowl Host Committee and others that is focused on a new quality-of-life plan for Indianapolis’ Near Eastside. But we have a unique opportunity over the next three years to do something more for the community.

It’s my hope that community leaders, business owners, school administrators and teachers, and parents would grab onto this unique period of time and more fully engage. Engage by participating in programs established by sports event coordinators, like the Big Ten Conference Career Expo for Big Ten students and alumni attending the Indianapolis basketball tournaments. Engage by developing new related programs that focus on youth or the less fortunate, like the NCAA’s Final Four Middle School Madness, or join Indiana Sports Corp’s existing efforts to help at-risk youth through one of its sports-related programs listed at: www.indianasportscorp.com/youth. Or engage by inviting leaders of other organizations or others to join forces and harness the energy generated by these great events so that community challenges can be addressed together.

There is a saying, more popular now than before, that leaders should never waste a crisis. The same could be said for an opportunity of a lifetime for a community to come together. It truly is (or should be) more than just a game.