The State Of Sportsmanship
What happened to class?
What happened to sportsmanship?
What happened to taking the high road?
Why is everything “in your face” in the sports world?
The fact that people were talking about post-game fights, skirmishes and arrests and not the games itself is a sad commentary on not only college football but other sports as well.
Last weekend, known as rivalry weekend, 8 upsets by visiting teams turned into ugly scenes following those games.
It’s not enough to show elation on the sidelines before going out to congratulate and commiserate the team you’ve beaten, it is fashionable now to storm the field and add insult to injury by attempting to do things like planting a flag on the vanquished team’s field.
It’s not enough to score a monumental upset such as Michigan’s shocker of Ohio State in Columbus, celebrate on the sidelines and again in the locker room.
No, it’s now an “in your face” mockery in front of your beaten foe and its fans.
Similar actions occurred following the N.C. State-North Carolina game as well as the Florida-Florida State, Arizona-Arizona State, Arkansas-Missouri, and a few other battles as well.
But the one that got the most attention was the skirmish following the Michigan-Ohio State contest that saw the unranked Wolverines stun the second-ranked Buckeyes for the fourth straight season.
One of the Michigan players tried to plant a large school flag on the Ohio State State turf but the beaten Buckeyes were having none of that and a brawl ensued. Punches were thrown, pepper spray was used, and a police officer was injured.
Florida State head coach Mike Norvell rushed to remove a flag set down by a Florida player after the Gators beat the Seminoles ending their hugely disappointing campaign.
An Arizona State player attempted to plant a pitchfork, representing the ASU logo onto the Arizona ground in Tucson. The Sun Devils completed their regular schedule at 10-2, while the U of A Wildcats wound up at 4-8 in a down year for them.
It is clear that players are out of control these days. They show that they don’t know how to win. They can’t control their emotions. They have no regard for what used to be the common practice of winning and losing with class.
Who is to blame for these actions?
The answer was apparent following the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry game when Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian stopped his team from planting a flag on the A&M logo on the field.
He told his team to celebrate somewhere else.
There it is.
The head coach is in control of his team. Or should be, anyway.
It is up to him to send the message that mocking the team they just whipped simply won’t happen.
If the head coach is truly the leader of his group, he will make sure his team knows what’s acceptable and what is not.
If he is not, you will see the same picture viewers saw in the Michigan-Ohio State, Arizona State-Arizona games and the others.
By the way, I cannot blame the victims of flag-planting to reacting by engaging the perpetrators. I think Ohio State had to take action and not stand idly by when Michigan went much too far.
The story is the same for the Arizona State-Arizona incident.
In a way, it is no different than when an NFL player goes through planned gyrations when they make a play. Running backs and receivers get to their feet and give the first down signal after gaining the necessary yardage on a play.
Defensive tackles and ends do a little dance after tackling a quarterback for a sack.
Notice, it doesn’t matter if his team trails by three touchdowns. It’s all about the player who made a good play. The fact that his team is still behind doesn’t mean a thing.
I’ve witnessed Friday practices by the home team at NFL games and have seen players rehearsing their moves if they score a touchdown.
I understand it starts in the locker room and brought out on the field.
It’s never about one player. It’s a group thing.
What happened to class?
I remember the great running back Jim Brown scoring a touchdown and then simply handing the ball to an official before trotting back to the sidelines.
Those days are long gone.
Why in baseball, do batters who hit home runs stand at the plate to admire their drive into the seats? Too often, those who stand and admire, see their drives bounced off the wall, and the batter can only get to first base, when a double would have been a sure thing had he only run right away.
There’s too much selfish stuff going on in sports today. You have to wonder whether the player really cares about his team winning, or whether his individual performance is the only thing that counts.
It is also the case that it is not a universal practice. Some teams do it the right way. It’s all about the head coach, or manager. Some just won’t allow the individual show to go on.
Rewinding to the scenes from many of last week’s sad college football games, it’s too bad a wonderful week of upsets and close games on the biggest weekend of the season, where the true rivalries are renewed, took a back seat to hard-to-watch actions once the final gun sounded.
Of course, not every big game ended that way.
Maybe it’s because the team played at home, like Syracuse, which likely ended Miami’s playoff hopes with a thrilling, precedent-setting come-from-behind triumph. The win was their first against a Top 10 team. The banner victory sent the Orange to a 9-3 finish in Fran Brown’s first year as head coach and set up Syracuse for a high-level Bowl game.
