Monday, November 22, 2004

Sport Professionals Need To Grow Up

I was going to do a bunch of research for this article, but then I thought, why waste my time? I did manage to look at a time line of the event, and that pretty much gave me all the information I needed.

Many professional athletes act just that way, professional. Unfortunately, there's typically a small group of players who can't control their tempers.

Many of us played organized sports when we were growing up, and what was the one thing that these events were supposed to teach us? It's not winning or losing that counts, but how you play the game.

Sure winning is awesome, and that is the goal of the event, but there is such thing as honor and just plain being a good sport. Everyone knows what it means to be a poor sport, or to have a bad sportsman-like attitude. It's fundamental in all of our sporting events.

The plain and simple truth is that the fans are always out of line and wrong to throw anything onto a court or field at a sporting event. The only exception might be with confetti at the end of a game when you win.

Now here's the tough pill to swallow. As a professional athlete there should be no reason on this planet for you to interact with the fans in such a negative manner. If you don't like being booed, yelled at, or called names, get out of the public spotlight.

Some professional athletes have been making so much money for so long they have some weird thought that they don't have to abide by the same rules as the rest of us. That for some reason it's somehow acceptable to jump into the stands and beat the wholly crap out of your fans when the mood strikes you.

I got news for you all. Grow the heck up. Where will you be when your butt gets canned for good? Suddenly, you'll go from making millions to not being able to get a job at the local car wash.

Get a clue, and start acting like the person that many kids look up to. This isn't some playground basketball game where you can cuss and throw punches if you don't get your way like some immature teen. It's your profession, and the profession of many of your peers.

If you don't like the way things are, then leave the league. You are not what the game is all about, and guess what Skippy, many of you will find this out the hard way.

Nobody wants you on their team if you act like that. The fans, or your fellow players.

Police officers are in the same boat. They must do their job, take people's crap all day long who look down on them, spit at them, or even try to kill them. In many cases, the police have to just grin and bare it, because here's the rub. They knew the job was dangerous when they took it.

The same goes for professional players, actors, or anyone else in the spotlight. The simple answer to you being upset at the attention is to leave your line of work.

This does not excuse any fan of sporting events or of entertainers from doing things that are disrespectful to these public figures. Just because someone is in the public spotlight does not mean they are your public property to treat however you wish.

Just as the superstar should be nice to their fans, the fans should equally be nice to the star. It all comes down to why can't we all just play nice together?

Is it just me, or is this topic merely something that people just did not learn when they were in kindergarten? It seems really basic things that your parents and teachers should have impressed on you at a young age.

Perhaps it's just too difficult for some of the Neanderthal's that are playing professional sports to grasp? If so, just like in school and the rest of the world, they need to be suspended or dropped altogether if this is what it will take to send them a wakeup call.

We are once again entering into the season of goodwill. Let's not make doing good, and treating others nicely, a seasonal thing. Civilized people should treat everyone with respect and kindness all year long. For those of you who can't grasp the concept, we will continue to build prison systems.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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