Over the weekend, the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers were involved in a fight. Late in the game, Ben Wallace committed a hard foul on Ron Artest; before long, the fight spread across the entire court.
No, wait. I mixed up a few details.
Actually, over the weekend, a fight occurred between the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks. When Denver had a comfortable lead late in the game, New York’s Mardy Collins committed a hard foul to prevent an easy fast break basket by Denver’s J.R. Smith. Naturally, the foul led to pushing, shoving and punching, because that’s the natural result of a foul. Or something like that.
I would go into detail, but I think there’s enough play-by-play — or shove-by-shove — available. Perhaps this brief formula will tell the story:
(Detroit + Indiana) – fan involvement = Denver + New York.
After the infamous Fight Night at the Palace, I wrote, “The level of reverence [professional athletes] receive in modern culture should compel an equally high level of personal responsibility.” That is still true.
Unfortunately, that message does not seem to be reaching the right people.
Perhaps the league should take the approach some old-school fathers might take. You want to try smoking behind the gym? Fine: here’s a pack, and you’re going to smoke the whole thing in front of me. You want to fight? Fine: here’s two pairs of gloves, and you two get in the ring and beat on each other all you want. Cheap fouls, cheap shots, suspended a few games of a long season: it’s all show.
As long as they keep it on the court/field/rink/pitch (ie, no going after fans) and pick on people their own age/size/etc (ie, no going after 80 year old pitching coaches with metal plates in their heads, or whatever that Red Sox fight involved) and stay within accepted boxing rules (ie, no using baseball bats or chairs or helmets [Miami (FL)]), I say stop the game, get everyone else out of the way, and let them go at it. Make them go at it. Maybe it’s not so great when you actually have to fight someone.
I think your formula is wrong and you are remembering wrong. I just watched the video again on youtube. There really wasn’t a Detroit + Indiana. There was a little bit of Ben + Ron and some other jawing, no punches though. The foul was nothing like the one in the Knicks game either. If anything it was fan involvement + Indiana. If there had been no fan involvement no one would remember than night. I’m not defending Artest. He was wrong. All the way wrong. But if that dope hadn’t thrown the cup, nobody would remember that night. There probably wouldn’t have even been any suspensions. We come from way different sides of the tracks on all that though.
As for your message, this isn’t just a professional athlete problem. This is a sin problem. We’ve seen it recently in big name pastors, politicians, entertainment stars… It doesn’t matter how much reverence you give someone, they are still human. Our misguided reverence doesn’t make them a better person. It may compel a person to try to be different, but they will still fall short. So maybe the problem is with our misguided reverence, or the level of it, in the first place.
Who is this Paul guy – some kind of pastor or something? Next he’ll be blaming the BCS on Satan (oh wait, I already did that).
I won’t blame the BCS on Satan, maybe Miles Brand. Wait. Have you ever seen Miles Brand and Satan in the same place?
Paul, you raise worthwhile points. A few responses:
First, I fully agree with you that this is a sin problem. In fact, every problem I might cite on this blog could be traced back to sin. But this blog would become significantly less interesting if I cited a problem and said, “This is a sin problem,” and left it at that. Yes, it is a sin problem, but I have elected to look at it in a more nuanced cultural manner. I am not denying the root cause.
Second, I did not intend to imply that reverence makes someone better. Not at all. But when it comes to influential cultural figures such as sports stars, I do believe that it should not be unreasonable to expect behavior that is at least somewhat responsible and controlled. Whether or not they like it, they are in positions of cultural power, and that should come with expectations of responsible behavior.
However, that’s not what we get. We get some responsible, controlled athletes, but we also get a lot of immature athletes who have no idea how to control their response to the smallest of provocations. We get a large population of athletes who behave worse and have less self-control than the general population, and yet continue to hold a position of cultural power. That is something that, as sinful creatures, we can’t fully fix, but I do think we can effect an improvement.
And my belief that we should hold higher expectations of responsible behavior from professional athletes is what compels me to believe the Detroit/Indiana incident is actually similar to the New York/Denver incident. The common thread between the two is the failure of high-profile public figures to moderate their response to relatively minor provocation. In New York it was a hard foul, and in Detroit it was a thrown cup, but neither provocation was even close to being as severe as the response from the athletes. There are many people who seem to be able to manage not to start a fight over such minor actions, but somehow many of our professional athletes haven’t learned that skill of self-control. That is what I consider a major problem.
Believe me, I am not condoning the provocations. Collins’ hard foul was unnecessary (it doesn’t take that hard of a foul to prevent a layup), and the Detroit fan’s throwing the cup was pure stupidity, and he should never again be allowed in an NBA arena. And I also believe too many people do hold professional athletes in too high of a regard. But they are in a position of power, when it comes to such high-profile figures, I think the “to whom much is given” principle is applicable in a cultural sense — even to athletes.
So when a very wealthy, culturally influential basketball player displays a juvenile reaction to a juvenile provocation, while I have a problem with both parties, I have a bigger problem with the reaction. If Artest lacks the capability to walk away from a fan’s stupidity and let it be properly handled, and if Smith (among others on the court) lacks the capability to walk away from a hard foul and let it be properly handled, then there is a major problem. And yes, the base of sin means it will not be eliminated until Jesus returns, but that doesn’t mean we can’t at least talk about it an effort to reduce it a little bit.
And yes, you are correct: that does mean reducing the power we give them as much as it means convincing them to improve their behavior.
Also, I think you may be on to something with your Miles Brand theory. We need to keep an eye on him.
I’m not trying to be a nitpicker. Well maybe I am. Here are some things I think after reading your well put reply. First, you’re right I oversimplified things by making it a sin issue. But what I was trying to point out is that it isn’t a sports thing. It’s across the board with people that we reverence, not just athletes. Second, as I read and think about this I’m reminded of Charles Barkley. He’s right, we don’t pay these guys to be role models. We pay them to play sports. We pay them to play games. Third, you seem to be saying that the majority of athletes are the ones that cause trouble. I think that actually that probably is a small minority. It may even be comparable to the percentage that cause trouble outside of sports. Going back to the Pacers Pistons game there were more peacemakers out of the players than provokers. New York and Denver was the same way. You just don’t hear enough about the Warrick Dunns, David Robinsons, Will Shields and men like that. Fourth, I’ve reacted similarly to hard fouls(that’s right before I was a pastor I was even kicked out of a church tournament!). I’m not defending my actions or the actions of these athletes, but it harder to excercise self control when you are tired (both examples we’re looking at were end of the game), you are full of adrenaline, and young. And a lot of times a hard foul like that hurts as much or worse than a punch.