I've never been much of a sports fan. In fact, I tend to get pretty uncomfortable with any sort of competition. Even in things I excel in, I would much prefer to work together with people rather than against them.
My wife and I have discussed this and we agree that my view of competitive things is in large part prompted by the things I've seen done by overly competitive people.
But the bravado and machismo demonstrated by sports fanatics when I was young don't even compare to the stupidity shown at young people's sporting events these days.
Yesterday, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, an off-duty police officer attending his daughter's soccer game got into a fight with another one of the fathers. Their sideline fight became so involved that the referees on the soccer field had to call a stop to the gameplay so they could break up the fight between the fathers.
After the men were ejected from the park, the fight continued at the vehicles where one of the men allegedly ran over the other man's foot with his car. Simply amazing.
You can read the whole story here.
Richard,
ReplyDeleteOur older boys played little league for a few seasons and the parents drove me crazy. One of the coaches of the boys' team one year was a huge jerk to his own son. During one game he became so out of control yelling and screaming at the kid, who was about 9, that the baseball commissioner had to call the local city police to come and escort the man from the field and out of the park.
I have issues with the way sports have become gods to so many people in this culture today. And don't even get me stated on school budgets....around here they would get rid of all music or art in order to keep freshman football. It drive me nuts.
Karen - That is truly appalling. I was turned off on competitive things by my father who is a huge sports fan. But his fanaticism was really always kept in check. He never did anything of this sort. He was just very focused on sports and loved all of them (including a Chinese tiddly-winks tournaments we found him watching on ESPN late one night).
ReplyDeleteBut I had no idea until recently that some parents get this worked up at sporting events. What a wonderful example to set for their kids.