Unsportsmanlike Conduct
In my teens and early twenties I was an avid sports fan, at least of pro football and basketball. I kept up with all the team records and player stats, and was glued to the TV at game time. Now I couldn’t even tell you which NFL team is the current Super Bowl champion. I gradually left fandom behind as I grew into adulthood and simply no longer had the time or inclination to devote to it. But the primary reason I lost interest over the years was the sad decline of basic, good sportsmanship in our culture.
That surely makes me seem hopelessly naïve and old-fashioned, but that only proves my point about the debasement of sportsmanship. In my youth (and I’m not just romanticizing this) sports competition was fierce but mutually respectful. On the unusual occasions when it wasn’t, whoever violated that unwritten contract shamed himself. Players known for their quiet humility, like Green Bay Packers quarterbacking legend Bart Starr, were idolized; by contrast, people were shocked by boastful behavior as tame as Jets quarterback Joe Namath’s pre-game prediction of a Super Bowl victory in 1969. Fans and players alike were heavily invested in winning, of course, but we knew that ultimately it was a game and not a matter of life and death.
Today, sports, especially at the professional level, have been degraded by ubiquitous trash-talking and arrogance, boasting and taunting, open contempt for one’s opponent, and even callousness toward injured opponents – on the part of fans as well as players. I stopped watching in no small part because I couldn’t bear yet another end zone celebration in which players childishly performed choreographed dances for the cameras and crowd. Watching players act as if no one had ever scored a touchdown or sacked a quarterback before got tiresome fast.
Here’s a recent example of the decline of sportsmanship. Late in the second quarter of the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl in Florida just before New Years Day, Missouri Tigers defensive lineman Darius Robinson was called for roughing the passer, Wake Forest Demon Deacons quarterback Sam Hartman.
(As an aside: this obnoxious corporate renaming of bowl games and stadiums (stadia, actually) has to stop. The “Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl”? Could there be a clunkier, less sporty name for a sporting event? I’m reminded of The Simpsons episode in which the local basketball arena is renamed after a shampoo product: the Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific Arena.)
Anyway, as Hartman lay on the field, Missouri cornerback Ennis Rakestraw Jr. bent to stretch out a hand and help him up from the grass. Tiger linebacker Chad Bailey, however, was having none of this show of basic decency. The defensive team captain Bailey pushed the sophomore Rakestraw’s hand aside and seemed so agitated by it that seconds later the two were shoving each other in the middle of the field and had to be separated by teammates.
Wake Forest went on to a 27-17 victory over Missouri, and Bailey later tweeted an apology to his teammate about the incident: “I wanna send an apology to my boy @EnnisRakestraw, as a captain of this team my actions were uncalled for and inexcusable.”
In response to a video of the incident shared online, one blue-checked keyboard warrior wrote on Twitter, “Im on #33’s [Bailey’s] side. You are quite literally supposed to kick the opponent when they’re down, not help them up.” No, you are “quite literally” not. Not only would that be another penalty, but it’s called unsportsmanlike conduct. It’s “quite literally” mean-spirited, dishonorable, and morally wrong.
Another Twitter user concurred with the first: “This is war, homie.” No, it’s not. Not even close to war. It’s a sport. Indeed, I would argue that even in wartime there is room for mercy, decency, and humanity. And if there’s room for those amid the hellish horrors of war, there’s no excuse not to display them on the field of sporting competition.
Still another internet tough guy added, “Never help offensive player up. Especially QB. If possible walk by him and knock him back down when he’s getting up.” Why? What purpose does that serve except to demonstrate to everyone that you are a petty, ignoble coward?
To my pleasant surprise, the vast majority of the social media respondents to these ugly messages defended Rakestraw’s uncommon gesture of class and sportsmanship. To the first Twitter commentor, one wrote, “Hope ya joking but if you’re not you got issues to workout! Sportsmanship is a real thing and one we need more of. During a play, yes hit peeps as hard as you can! Play hard. After whistle nothing wrong with giving a guy a hand and show some class. C’mon man.”
C’mon man, indeed.
Another recent example. On this past New Year’s Day, the New York Giants clinched an NFL playoff spot with a win over the Indianapolis Colts. In the second quarter of that game, rookie Kayvon Thibodeaux sacked Colts quarterback Nick Foles, then celebrated by pretending to make snow angels on the MetLife Stadium turf – with Foles writhing in pain right beside him (indeed, Foles was too injured to return to the game).
Thibodeaux later claimed he did not realize at the time that Foles was hurt; I’ll take him at his word, but perhaps if he hadn’t been indulging his ego, he would have realized Foles was hurt and might have shown some concern. That would have been the sportsmanlike, honorable thing to do.
I keep referring to “honor” because good sportsmanship is a matter of honorable behavior. It dishonors you to treat your opponent with open contempt. It is undignified to taunt your opponent with trash talk or end-zone choreography. It is shameful to gloat over an injured opponent. As a professional athlete, you’re a role model to many thousands and potentially millions of kids; take that responsibility seriously.
There is a world of difference between genuine exultation in the passion of the moment and celebrating your ego with taunts and rehearsed dance moves. The first stems naturally from what ABC’s Wide World of Sports used to call “the thrill of victory”; the other comes from a streak of moral weakness and even cruelty.
As has often been noted, “Sports doesn’t build character. It reveals it.” And as naïve and old-fashioned as this may sound today, character matters.