What ever happened to sportsmanship?

[Nosmo King]

You may or may not have watched the AFC Wildcard game Saturday night between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. Or, perhaps you are not a fan of football. Either way, the game devolved into a thuggish brawl with vicious, intentionally crippling hits, fights and, more disgustingly, boorish and rude fan behavior from the Cincinnati fans.

I live in the Pittsburgh area and since the game the sports talk radio stations in this market have featured calls about the antics during that game. Some callers tried to rationalize the team's behavior, others rightfully condemned it. But no callers I've heard have called to mourn the loss of sportsmanship in our favorite professional game.

I'm beyond child rearing age. If I had such a lucky chance and became blessed with a son, I highly doubt that I would encourage him to pursue sports. When I was a little nipper, I played Little League baseball. We were taught not only the fundamentals of the game, but an appreciation of sportsmanship, the values of winning with grace and an honest respect for our competitors. These are valuable lessons for a young boy or girl, lessons that serve well in adult life.

But have we lost those virtues in the sporting arena? Could you be confident that your child or grandchild could learn these noble virtues through sport as we have it today? Is my concern legitimate, or am I just another old fart crying about 'in my day...'?

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Football and basketball have been hijacked by ghetto culture. The outlandishness of boorish, rude behavior is easy to market (see Trump) and the problem self perpetuates and transmits into the spectator base.
Thank Cassius Clay.

 

[Grandma]

As usual Roshawn is light years off the mark.

Sportsmanship is still "taught", meaning there's some lip service given to the idea, but once an athlete is in college they gain superstar status. The universities have been cracking down a bit lately, but for the most part the players' misbehavior - on and off the field - is forgiven, swept under the rug, totally ignored.

It's even worse when they become pros. They're in some perceived special class reserved for the rich & famous where misbehavior is okay and winning is everything.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Yup. These generations will make their own way, as did we, Nosmo.

We were blessed with parents who never said, "I want you to grow up to be a success," unless they prefaced it with, "Success is growing up to be a decent person" first.

I am so grateful for my dad and the others who coached us in the town and high school sports, scouts, and so forth.

We were fortunate.

 

[aaronleland]

I heard an interview with Adam "Pacman" Jones where he claimed Antonio Brown was faking his injury. He can't even man up to the fact that he cost his team the game. Him and Burfict are jackasses.

 

[alpine]

The fact is that; those kids who go out there on the field, risk their health for the entertainment of us all.

In NFL, any hit, regardless of being legal or illegal, have the potential to damage the players health, permanently.

Yes, Bengals player did a foul play, and there was another foul play by the Steelers player in the first half.
You are pushing some large man loaded with steroids on to a field, pumped with fictional rivalries, crowds cheering every time they hit and kick each other...
What did you expect?

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

As usual Roshawn is light years off the mark.

Sportsmanship is still "taught", meaning there's some lip service given to the idea, but once an athlete is in college they gain superstar status. The universities have been cracking down a bit lately, but for the most part the players' misbehavior - on and off the field - is forgiven, swept under the rug, totally ignored.

It's even worse when they become pros. They're in some perceived special class reserved for the rich & famous where misbehavior is okay and winning is everything.

Your post does nothing to counter mine. They are both accurate. The deterioration begins with boxing and then ultimately football and basketball being hijacked by ghetto culture.
I coached high school sports for over twenty years and watched the culture deteriorate. The kids get it from the pros. The pros reflect a fatherless, boorish culture that emanates from misnomer axioms like 'It ain't bragging if you can back it up.'
Truth is that it's bragging only when you can back it up and that is rude and boorish. When you can't back it up you're a rude, boorish braggart and a liar.

 

[bucs90]

I don't think it's worse....it's better. In football at least. Football in the 1970s-1990s was FAR more rough and in your face than the Sissification Football League rules of today or the NCAA college version.

Remember the Miami Hurricanes of the 80s? The Florida and FSU teams of the 90s? The Boz? The 85 Bears? The Steel Curtain? The Oakland/LA Raiders? The early 90s Falcons? Even in the NBA the bad boy Detroit Pistons?

They were...by far...less sportsman like than any team today.

The problem is our society has turned into such a bunch of pussies that any little offense it "outrageous".

 

[Nosmo King]

The fact is that; those kids who go out there on the field, risk their health for the entertainment of us all.

In NFL, any hit, regardless of being legal or illegal, have the potential to damage the players health, permanently.

Yes, Bengals player did a foul play, and there was another foul play by the Steelers player in the first half.
You are pushing some large man loaded with steroids on to a field, pumped with fictional rivalries, crowds cheering every time they hit and kick each other...
What did you expect?

In the larger sense, it isn't the facts of health problems but the erosion of the concept of good sportsmanship. The accidents have always happened in sports, but the glorification of the perpetrator, the exaltation in the injury, real or potential has ruined sports as a venue in which to inculcate the virtues of sportsmanship.

Some run to their inherent racist beliefs, but that does not serve a purpose other than to divide. My experiences with my African American teammates taught me that we all share a basic human value of competition and fair play.

Some seek to villi anime sport as too dangerous and violent while those dangers and violence have always been a factor in contact sports. My concern is the true sporting venue as a place to teach fair play and sportsmanship. It's a cultural issue, but not one easily dismissed as racial. It's a problem that all athletes, young and old Black and White face.

 

[Nosmo King]

I don't think it's worse....it's better. In football at least. Football in the 1970s-1990s was FAR more rough and in your face than the Sissification Football League rules of today or the NCAA college version.

Remember the Miami Hurricanes of the 80s? The Florida and FSU teams of the 90s? The Boz? The 85 Bears? The Steel Curtain? The Oakland/LA Raiders? The early 90s Falcons? Even in the NBA the bad boy Detroit Pistons?

They were...by far...less sportsman like than any team today.

The problem is our society has turned into such a bunch of pussies that any little offense it "outrageous".

Do you think that the NFL has gone feminine? But further, do you believe that a fifteen yard personal foul penalty is fair while a forty five yard pass interference penalty is just as fair?

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

I don't think it's worse....it's better. In football at least. Football in the 1970s-1990s was FAR more rough and in your face than the Sissification Football League rules of today or the NCAA college version.

Remember the Miami Hurricanes of the 80s? The Florida and FSU teams of the 90s? The Boz? The 85 Bears? The Steel Curtain? The Oakland/LA Raiders? The early 90s Falcons? Even in the NBA the bad boy Detroit Pistons?

They were...by far...less sportsman like than any team today.

The problem is our society has turned into such a bunch of pussies that any little offense it "outrageous".

Those teams you mention were some of the trail blazers of boorish unsportsmanlike behavior.
Miami epitomized and set the trend for ghetto football. Trash.
You have to go back to the seventies and before in order to understand civility in sports. That includes football. You want to annihilate your opponent and then help him up after the play so you can annihilate him again.
Since the ghetto-fication of sports, opponents talk in each other's faces and pound their chests and ham for the cameras because they have no comprehension of courtesy and respect. Trash.
These idiots set the example for the kids who have no parent around to explain to them why it's wrong.
As far as the pussification goes, players didn't have the understanding of after effects of repeated concussions as they do today and players were way smaller resulting in way less severe collisions.

 

[Steven_R]

It isn't just thug sports like basketball and football. Remember John McEnroe's tantrums or Ty Cobb spiking basemen?

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

It isn't just thug sports like basketball and football. Remember John McEnroe's tantrums or Ty Cobb spiking basemen?

McEnroe was chided and Ty Cobb was not celebrated. They were exceptions. Now it's the standard.

 

[alpine]

The fact is that; those kids who go out there on the field, risk their health for the entertainment of us all.

In NFL, any hit, regardless of being legal or illegal, have the potential to damage the players health, permanently.

Yes, Bengals player did a foul play, and there was another foul play by the Steelers player in the first half.
You are pushing some large man loaded with steroids on to a field, pumped with fictional rivalries, crowds cheering every time they hit and kick each other...
What did you expect?

In the larger sense, it isn't the facts of health problems but the erosion of the concept of good sportsmanship. The accidents have always happened in sports, but the glorification of the perpetrator, the exaltation in the injury, real or potential has ruined sports as a venue in which to inculcate the virtues of sportsmanship.

Some run to their inherent racist beliefs, but that does not serve a purpose other than to divide. My experiences with my African American teammates taught me that we all share a basic human value of competition and fair play.

Some seek to villi anime sport as too dangerous and violent while those dangers and violence have always been a factor in contact sports. My concern is the true sporting venue as a place to teach fair play and sportsmanship. It's a cultural issue, but not one easily dismissed as racial. It's a problem that all athletes, young and old Black and White face.

Each hit to your body, is in effect, damaging you, permanently...

Who do you think will take this challenge?

 

[JOSweetHeart]

Whatever happened to sportsmanship. People these days don't care anymore what it is that they have to do to themselves or to other people in order to score whatever it is that they want to get their hands on and if they are willing to do anything to themselves, well then there is no prayer for the rest of us where people like that are concerned.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

 

[DigitalDrifter]

I think it all stems from thug culture.

 

[alpine]

I dont hear people complaining about the "thug" culture in boxing, or ufc, but in NFL...

I still remember Mike Tyson, after the Holyfield match, answering to the reporters regarding him biting Holyfields ear off...
He was pointing to his all swollen messed up face: "look what he did to me, my daughter will be scared of me..."

American Football is not a sport, those people go out there to FIGHT and WIN.
And sportsmanship ends when you start to feel the pain.

I am no way supporting players trying to kill each other on the field. I like it better when they don't do that.
But lets not kid ourselves about what NFL is and what it is NOT...

 

[Nosmo King]

Is sport, in general, no longer a place to practice and preach sportsmanship and fair play, or are professional sports the only venue without honor? Do professional athletes exemplify sportsmanship?

Which athletes do you consider good sportsmen?

 

[RoshawnMarkwees]

Which athletes do you consider good sportsmen?

Most baseball players.

 

[alpine]

Which athletes do you consider good sportsmen?

Most baseball players.

whatever they put in those steroids, makes them mellow for sure...