Nestled near a then-unnamed river in Zaire — now the Democratic Republic of Congo — villagers began hemorrhaging to death in 1976. It was just two years after the world turned its eyes to the African nation to watch Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle.” Atop blood-drenched mattresses, unable to speak, to thank, to apologize, to plead, people became bodies, eroding lost causes despite the tireless efforts of the humanitarians who risked their own lives to save them.

Those who fought the good fight some 38 years ago weren’t armed with incubators, centrifuges or culture-growing Petri dishes. They were stuffing fingers into orifices, removing placentas, trying anything that might keep the afflicted alive just a little while longer. And for their trouble — their unparalleled selflessness, really — most everyone who tried to help the infected died, too.

That Congolese body of water, the source of the scourge, would be named the Ebola River. In Lingala, a Bantu language spoken by more than 10 million Africans, Ebola translates to “Black River.”

Two Sundays ago in Jacksonville, Florida, some 7,000 miles away from the Ebola River, Jaxson de Ville — the mascot for the Jaguars — inexplicably held up a sign reading “Towels Carry Ebola,” an attempted dig at the Jags’ opponent that day, the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose fans wave Terrible Towels during home games.

Meanwhile, a few states away, a few bright Houston Texans fans went to AT&T Stadium wearing hazmat suits for the Texans’ game against the Cowboys.

Earlier that week, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban reportedly told his players to avoid Africa — like, the entire continent.

Now, less than three weeks later, the Ebola crisis is everywhere you look. (In the headlines, I mean. Fortunately, cases of Americans being infected have been limited and swiftly addressed, to this point.) It was never a comedic trope, but the impact — and the stigma of the disease — is getting more serious.

The New York Times reported Monday that Sierra Leone’s national soccer team — exiled during the crisis for their own safety — has been taunted and humiliated prior to, during, and after matches in recent months. Hotel guests grow alarmed when the club checks into rooms housed on floors beneath them.

“You feel humiliated, like garbage, and you want to punch someone,” John Trye, a reserve goalkeeper, said after hearing “Ebola” shouted at the players during a training session last Thursday. “No one wants to have Ebola in their country.”

Yet, our world of sports remains in relative silence about both the threat and education needed for the public to be vigilant while not overreacting.

Here in America — a nation that has spent more than $600 billion on defense during each year since 2007, a figure that paradoxically dwarfs what we spend on healthcare and education — we are absolutely horrified by the reality that we haven’t been able to keep Ebola from invading our sovereign territory.

A poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News this week found that 43 percent of Americans disapprove of President Barack Obama’s response to the Ebola epidemic while some 16 percent had no opinion whatsoever. The latter figure is perhaps more interesting when you consider that the same poll shows 67 percent of voters would support restricting entry to the U.S. by people who have simply been in affected countries. In August, Harvard conducted a poll that found 33 percent believe there is “an effective medicine to treat people who have gotten sick with Ebola.” (Note: There isn’t.) It was aptly titled: “Poll finds many in U.S. lack knowledge about Ebola and its transmission.”

Nor do citizens know much about U.S. health history, it seems. Though rare, there have actually been numerous pandemics to hit the United States in the 20th century alone — Spanish flu, polio, Asian flu, Mexican hot sauce botulism, cryptosporidium , whooping cough, AIDS, to name a few. Some of the diseases even remain active today.

Dr. Rick Sacra was the second American flown back to the U.S. after being diagnosed with Ebola. He was flown to Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska, an airport not eight minutes from my apartment. Had I looked out my window on Sept. 5, I might’ve seen him and his cavalcade of ambulances stuffed with biohazard suit-clad personnel.

As you can imagine, his presence has not gone unnoticed.

I work for the most-watched news station in town. Since the crisis has touched American soil, I’ve fielded dozens of phone calls — from the curious to the cautious. I’ve heard Baby Boomers suggest that “[W]e should take those infected out in the street and shoot them,” and I’ve heard grandmothers ask if there’s anything they can do to help. Teenagers have asked me to pass along ‘good vibes’ to the Nebraska Medical Center and its employees, and I’ve been petitioned by businessmen to advise the Nebraska Cornhusker football team not to travel to away games — you know, “just in case.”

Still others have decided to turn Ebola into an emoji-style, shock-face joke. Their insensitivity and foolish dismissal of the seriousness of the matter is, at least, a departure from those who view the disease as proof that the apocalypse is nigh, but helps to fracture any chance at starting anything resembling a dialogue about what we can do.

There’s a middle ground, though, and Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Tamba Hali has found it. Hali, who was born in Liberia — a region that has experienced the preponderance of Ebola cases this year — joined forces with Heart to Heart International last week. They’re opening an Ebola Treatment Unit in Kakata, Liberia, in less than a month, where 70 beds will be open to help those affected. This wasn’t a long-term proposal or a GoFundMe page; it was an immediate response to an immediate problem.

This is HHI’s vision, per their website:

“We imagine a world in which every person has access to a healthy life and every community has the capacity to make that access a reality. We believe that sustained access to health sets the foundation for individual and community development. In everything we do, we work to broaden access to healthcare services and build capacity for health. It’s a lofty vision, but we take a step closer to it every day through support from people like you. Invest in our efforts to create a healthier world today.”

For them, it was a no-brainer to team with Hali.

“Tamba Hali has a very interesting profile. And I think the people of Liberia recognize that he is a sports star, so he has good recognition,” said Jim Mitchum, CEO of Heart to Heart International, in a personal interview.

Mitchum strikes a chord when he mentions Hali’s profile. Sports provide a global platform for athletes to take advantage of the way they implicitly affect communities. Unfortunately, outside of Hali and some whispers of ex-NFL player Christian Okoye taking notice of the crisis, I’ve found no evidence that our professional athletes have any interest in being part of a global solution for Ebola. They just want to avoid it.

In one sense, it’s understandable, we are all afraid of something foreign, of something that kills and kills well. We are afraid because others are afraid. But the American perspective on a disease that has, as of October 10th, killed 4,033 people this year alone (and infected some 8,400), seems woefully uninformed and inadequate. It’s to the point where Jon Stewart lampooned the media frenzy.

Rather than being proactive, though, domestic sports have a history of letting fear consume their approach toward helping understand a disease outbreak. More than 20 years ago, Magic Johnson took on AIDS, virtually on his own. The public (and the NBA) let him shoulder that unfair burden because we were too afraid to try to understand what it was.

It would be ridiculous to suggest that the Ebola crisis is a problem that sports can solve, but given the powerful reach our leagues have when it comes to spreading messages and increasing awareness, it wouldn’t seem arduous to at least ask they take the lead in shunning distasteful comedic attempts fueled by ignorance.