Bad Acts

In the wake of the tragic death of Ricardo Portillo in Utah, a longtime high school sports administrator suggests at least six ways to make sports safer for game officials.

Trash talking via social media has been a factor in a number of fights at youth sports contests around the country, but, there hasn't been a flash mob incident, at least so far.  But the year isn't even half over.

When fans misbehave at sports contests in the U.S. we tend to blame individuals. When things get out of hand at sports contests in foreign countries, large groups of fans start fighting and, as in Egypt last week, people end up dying. What makes bad sportsmanship in America different?

There were plenty of bad acts to choose from for the first half of 2011, but on the good side of the ledger was a lesson in sportsmanship from a 5th grader at Evansdale Elementary School in Atlanta, Georgia, which earned him first place in the National Sportsmanship Day Essay Contest, Elementary Division in March. 

There were plenty of bad acts to choose from for the second half of 2011, but on the good side of the ledger was Alfreda Harris, who was awarded the Mannie Jackson Award for lifelong accomplishments on behalf of her community by the Basketball Hall of Fame.  A Boston school board member and former JC basketball coach, Harris runs an SAT Prep program, after-school basketball programs, and has worked with Reebok to bring computers and tutors into areas sorely lacking in educational essentials.

A Nashville basketball player reacted to a dispute with his coach by threatening to kill the coach … literally! But wait a minute. The player issued the threat on Facebook, writing, "I’ma kill em all." The player was expelled, triggering a debate over whether a threat is really a threat, and whether people who threaten on Facebook are really threatening or just venting

Bad acts in women’s soccer gained national notoriety in the fourth quarter of 2009.  An ugly brawl involving players and spectators at the Rhode Island girls’ state high school soccer championship combined with a University of New Mexico college player who was caught on film committing a series of dirty and exceedingly physical plays led the national sports media to reflect on the state of women’s sports.  It was almost as if the national media discovered that women can compete intensely, commit dirty plays and engage in bad acts … kind of like, dare I say, men.

The worst bad act in this quarter was also the most unusual.  A player in a Chicago youth league designed to keep troubled teens off the street shot his coach.  The coach’s sin?  He removed the player from the game.  Playing time disputes have reached depths that none of us could have imagined.  While coaches are not generally shot over their substitution patterns, this is an extreme illustration of the pressures that coaches are under over playing time.

Post-game handshakes are a recurring problem in youth and high school sports.  In New Jersey, the post-game handshake became a post-game headbutt as a Little League coach allegedly headbutted a rival coach after the post-game handshake after a game in June.

The Chicago Public Schools experienced a wave of gun violence in 2008-09; indeed, over 30 CPS students were murdered in the 2008-09 school year. Some of this gun violence spilled over to athletic contests. In January, Chicago had two shooting incidents at high school basketball games - bad acts don't get worse than this.