When Fans Attack
One of the hottest topics this past weekend has been the outburst of Ron Artest and several of his team mates during an NBA game between the Pistons and Pacers. For those of you who don't watch sports, don't watch tv, don't read the paper, or live in a cave, I highly suggest you lead a new lifestyle. But more to the point, a scuffle between players resulted in a fan throwing his beer at Artest, who leapt into the stands and attacked the beer tosser. He was soon joined by several team mates, and things only got worse from there. It is fair to say it was one of, if not the single ugliest moment in sports history.
I've been trying to figure out all weekend where I stand on this issue, and how severe I feel it really is. All weekend I've been bombarded with current and former professional athletes from all sports speaking to the need for restraint, how regardless of the actions of fans, pro athletes must restrain themselves from responding and just do their job. How Artest should be kicked out of the league for his behavior. How important it is that fans feel safe at games and shouldn’t have to worry about players coming out to attack them. These guys are entertainers, they have to act civilized.
And at first it all made sense. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it didn’t really make much sense at all. I thought about myself as a professional and what I would do if someone didn’t like a webpage I'd built out and so they throw a mouse at me. Last time I checked, that is pretty unacceptable behavior in a civilized world. But Stub, these guys are paid a lot of money - the least they can do is show a little restraint, right? After all, they are professionals... or not.
The amount of money these players make has nothing to do with their behavior. Not that I condone the actions taken by the players during this game, but I think it a rather grievous error in judgment to expect that this men will not act impulsively when placed in situations like they were so recently exposed to. It is all to easy to forget that professional sports is not a civilized world - the majority of players coming into professional sports today don't graduate college (the NBA doesn’t even require graduation from high school!). These players are hired, not for their maturity, their civility, their character, or even their intelligence. They are hired for their ability to play a game. These guys go out and live on adrenaline for months at a time. They make a living through competition, through being the biggest dog on the block and through winning. Quite a few of these guys are testosterone machines. I, on the other hand, am not. But I can tell you if someone tossed a mouse at me for a bad web page, there would most certainly be a beat down coming.
David Stern attempted, with the suspensions of all parties involved, to send a message to players around the NBA that behavior like that would not be tolerated. But what about the fans? Oh yes its deplorable, oh yes its disgusting, oh yes we'll tighten security, blah blah blah. But for the beer tosser and his friends, as well as the idiots who stepped on the court and found themselves with a mouthful of Jermaine O'Neil fist - this incident might be the best thing that ever happened to them. Civil suits are going to start flying, and these guys, these idiots are going to be rich. Why? Because they threw beers at players. Because they stepped on the court and heckled athletes. Idiots of society unite, your stupidity will be rewarded.
Like I said, I don't think what Artest and his Pacer buddies did was right. When you run into the stands like a maniac and just start swinging at anything, people, innocent people, get hurt. That kind of behavior is wrong and unacceptable, and indeed it should be punished. But there are two parts to that message - because all of a sudden tossing beers, or bottles (Cleveland Browns), or batteries (Oakland Raiders, New York Yankees) is ok. It is unreasonable to expect that these, of all men, will be able to show an almost inhuman level of restraint in response to physical assaults by fans. Suspend the players involved, thats fine. But why not slap a lawsuit on one or two of the fans who stepped onto the court or tossed beers?
If you support a civilized game, then the fans who ruin that civility should be punished as well. Justice doesn’t just work one way, and it is unfair to punish these athletes (who for some reason I can't figure out, are expected to be beyond human emotion) and not punish the fans who instigate such behavior.
But hey, paying fans want their beer. They want to be drunk and obnoxious, shun normal societal conventions, and behave in a way that would probably land them in the hospital anywhere else. But they paid the $38 for seats, so why not, right? I guess the athletes who entertain society are, for some reason supposed to be better than that society. Whatever you say Mr. Stern.
- S
I've been trying to figure out all weekend where I stand on this issue, and how severe I feel it really is. All weekend I've been bombarded with current and former professional athletes from all sports speaking to the need for restraint, how regardless of the actions of fans, pro athletes must restrain themselves from responding and just do their job. How Artest should be kicked out of the league for his behavior. How important it is that fans feel safe at games and shouldn’t have to worry about players coming out to attack them. These guys are entertainers, they have to act civilized.
And at first it all made sense. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it didn’t really make much sense at all. I thought about myself as a professional and what I would do if someone didn’t like a webpage I'd built out and so they throw a mouse at me. Last time I checked, that is pretty unacceptable behavior in a civilized world. But Stub, these guys are paid a lot of money - the least they can do is show a little restraint, right? After all, they are professionals... or not.
The amount of money these players make has nothing to do with their behavior. Not that I condone the actions taken by the players during this game, but I think it a rather grievous error in judgment to expect that this men will not act impulsively when placed in situations like they were so recently exposed to. It is all to easy to forget that professional sports is not a civilized world - the majority of players coming into professional sports today don't graduate college (the NBA doesn’t even require graduation from high school!). These players are hired, not for their maturity, their civility, their character, or even their intelligence. They are hired for their ability to play a game. These guys go out and live on adrenaline for months at a time. They make a living through competition, through being the biggest dog on the block and through winning. Quite a few of these guys are testosterone machines. I, on the other hand, am not. But I can tell you if someone tossed a mouse at me for a bad web page, there would most certainly be a beat down coming.
David Stern attempted, with the suspensions of all parties involved, to send a message to players around the NBA that behavior like that would not be tolerated. But what about the fans? Oh yes its deplorable, oh yes its disgusting, oh yes we'll tighten security, blah blah blah. But for the beer tosser and his friends, as well as the idiots who stepped on the court and found themselves with a mouthful of Jermaine O'Neil fist - this incident might be the best thing that ever happened to them. Civil suits are going to start flying, and these guys, these idiots are going to be rich. Why? Because they threw beers at players. Because they stepped on the court and heckled athletes. Idiots of society unite, your stupidity will be rewarded.
Like I said, I don't think what Artest and his Pacer buddies did was right. When you run into the stands like a maniac and just start swinging at anything, people, innocent people, get hurt. That kind of behavior is wrong and unacceptable, and indeed it should be punished. But there are two parts to that message - because all of a sudden tossing beers, or bottles (Cleveland Browns), or batteries (Oakland Raiders, New York Yankees) is ok. It is unreasonable to expect that these, of all men, will be able to show an almost inhuman level of restraint in response to physical assaults by fans. Suspend the players involved, thats fine. But why not slap a lawsuit on one or two of the fans who stepped onto the court or tossed beers?
If you support a civilized game, then the fans who ruin that civility should be punished as well. Justice doesn’t just work one way, and it is unfair to punish these athletes (who for some reason I can't figure out, are expected to be beyond human emotion) and not punish the fans who instigate such behavior.
But hey, paying fans want their beer. They want to be drunk and obnoxious, shun normal societal conventions, and behave in a way that would probably land them in the hospital anywhere else. But they paid the $38 for seats, so why not, right? I guess the athletes who entertain society are, for some reason supposed to be better than that society. Whatever you say Mr. Stern.
- S
posted by Chris Stubbs at 7:01 AM
1 Comments:
Stubbs--
Remind me to never throw a mouse at you ... its been driving me crazy as well. I can't for the life of me figure out why Ron went flying into the stands to put a beating on some poor fool ... but, on the other had, I can't imagine why some idiot would think its cool to throw a beer on a player the size of Ron either. In addition, who in the hell thinks its cool for either party to act like such a bunch of idiots?
When I was in college, I was very passionate about my Mountaineers ... I waited in long, all day lines to get front row seats at the basketball games -- yes, when I was there, WVU was in the A10 and the A10 was pretty good -- Temple, UMass, St. Joes, GW, and so on and were a top 20 team most of the time ... when those big boys would come to town, we'd get tuned up, head to the game and raise hell for the entire thing -- even getting on the players during warmups, pregame, and all of it. After a terrible loss -- 1 point at the buzzer to Rutgers, some friends of mine and I lost our shit and started throwing stuff on the court ... cups, books, and even a chair -- mind you I am not proud of it, but it happened.
The boys from Rutgers (let's call them men) didn't like that and came at us ... scared the hell out of me! But, having had a few drinks I tried to stand up to them. Good thing for security or I'd still be eating my pizza via a straw. My actions still bother me to this day -- point is, everyone loses their shit every now and then. But, we are normal people ... pro athelets aren't ... they are role models -- wheather Barkley likes it or not. Those guys have to stay out of the stands -- and IMHO, so do asshole fans-->
C
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