Saturday, February 09, 2008
Sportsmanship
Two opposite extremes of sportsmanship were brought to our attention this week.
The first surrounds an event that occurred at the University of Illinois. We were delighted to note the apology posted on the University of Illinois's website for their fans behavior during a game this week versus the Indiana University Hoosiers. The controversy arose over star Indiana freshman, Eric Gordon, who spuriously reneged on a verbal commitment he made to play for the Illini. Now Gordon has no business in college at all, no interest in an education and is merely another one of Myles Brand's pawns trying to position himself for maximum earnings in the NBA. The fact that the powers that be wish to exploit him in the interest of Big 10 revenue before he can do so is not his fault. The people who pay their money for seats to the Illini home games in Champaign, however, had only him available as the target of their vitriol, the system, itself, being a far more amorphous (un-boo-able) entity.
Had they merely booed him in the line-up introductions and then booed him every time that he touched the ball, no apology would have been necessary. And that is what the majority of fans did. But a few fans couldn't leave it at that, and started chants that included obscenities and curses. Wonderfully enough, the Illinois athletic department still believes that its basketball games should have a family atmosphere. Thus the apology. At the Clarion, we loved it.
It reminded us of our years as an undergraduate at Indiana, where fans not only didn't interrupt the last several versus of the national anthem to cheer, but actually sang, young and old, loud and proud. At Indiana in that era, Coach Bob Knight would not allow a student section. He would come on the public address system to order the fans to stop chanting anything lewd or excessively berating the officials, that was his role. Even chanting the letters, "B.S." was off limits. Heck, at Indiana in those days, they wouldn't stand for people waving things behind the basket to distract the opposing team's free throw shooters. Those doing so were warned, once, twice, then summarily booted from Assembly Hall. Sportsmanship reigned supreme at Indiana and the midwest, generally. We are proud to see the University of Illinois attempting to uphold the same kind of standard in a far different era.
As a child of the New York metro area, the Clarion was shocked at the level of sportsmanship and class exhibited at Indiana. The Clarion had looked down at the midwest as inelegant, unsophisticated flyover country our whole life. We found we had much to learn.
The other incident of sportsmanship is an amusing lowlight brought to you by those Jerseyans and New Yorkers the Clarion grew up with and around. Apparently, it occurred in the hours and days following the Giants miraculous Super Bowl win over the Patriots. We ran across this email in a hilarious, scorchingly awesome, post Super Bowl email-centered column from Bill Simmons.
"I manage a bar in Boston, and after the worst Boston sports moment since 2003, the phone began to ring ... a total of 11 calls came in from random people in New York, 411-ing bars in Boston to heckle us. One of the bartenders is from Chicago, and she was completely perplexed. I simply explained, "This is why we hate New York so much." She nodded and said, "Now I see." I don't care how awful Boston sports fans can be, have any of us ever 411-ed New York bars? No, we simply roll cars with New York plates onto their roofs."
-- Matt B., Boston
Not exactly the classy sportsmanship of the midwest, but high comedy in the cause of sporting rivalry nonetheless.
Note: the Clarion does not support the rolling of cars in celebration of sporting victories.
The first surrounds an event that occurred at the University of Illinois. We were delighted to note the apology posted on the University of Illinois's website for their fans behavior during a game this week versus the Indiana University Hoosiers. The controversy arose over star Indiana freshman, Eric Gordon, who spuriously reneged on a verbal commitment he made to play for the Illini. Now Gordon has no business in college at all, no interest in an education and is merely another one of Myles Brand's pawns trying to position himself for maximum earnings in the NBA. The fact that the powers that be wish to exploit him in the interest of Big 10 revenue before he can do so is not his fault. The people who pay their money for seats to the Illini home games in Champaign, however, had only him available as the target of their vitriol, the system, itself, being a far more amorphous (un-boo-able) entity.
Had they merely booed him in the line-up introductions and then booed him every time that he touched the ball, no apology would have been necessary. And that is what the majority of fans did. But a few fans couldn't leave it at that, and started chants that included obscenities and curses. Wonderfully enough, the Illinois athletic department still believes that its basketball games should have a family atmosphere. Thus the apology. At the Clarion, we loved it.
It reminded us of our years as an undergraduate at Indiana, where fans not only didn't interrupt the last several versus of the national anthem to cheer, but actually sang, young and old, loud and proud. At Indiana in that era, Coach Bob Knight would not allow a student section. He would come on the public address system to order the fans to stop chanting anything lewd or excessively berating the officials, that was his role. Even chanting the letters, "B.S." was off limits. Heck, at Indiana in those days, they wouldn't stand for people waving things behind the basket to distract the opposing team's free throw shooters. Those doing so were warned, once, twice, then summarily booted from Assembly Hall. Sportsmanship reigned supreme at Indiana and the midwest, generally. We are proud to see the University of Illinois attempting to uphold the same kind of standard in a far different era.
As a child of the New York metro area, the Clarion was shocked at the level of sportsmanship and class exhibited at Indiana. The Clarion had looked down at the midwest as inelegant, unsophisticated flyover country our whole life. We found we had much to learn.
The other incident of sportsmanship is an amusing lowlight brought to you by those Jerseyans and New Yorkers the Clarion grew up with and around. Apparently, it occurred in the hours and days following the Giants miraculous Super Bowl win over the Patriots. We ran across this email in a hilarious, scorchingly awesome, post Super Bowl email-centered column from Bill Simmons.
"I manage a bar in Boston, and after the worst Boston sports moment since 2003, the phone began to ring ... a total of 11 calls came in from random people in New York, 411-ing bars in Boston to heckle us. One of the bartenders is from Chicago, and she was completely perplexed. I simply explained, "This is why we hate New York so much." She nodded and said, "Now I see." I don't care how awful Boston sports fans can be, have any of us ever 411-ed New York bars? No, we simply roll cars with New York plates onto their roofs."
-- Matt B., Boston
Not exactly the classy sportsmanship of the midwest, but high comedy in the cause of sporting rivalry nonetheless.
Note: the Clarion does not support the rolling of cars in celebration of sporting victories.
Labels: college basketball, sports
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