Respect must be earned, not commanded or demanded...
The sports news of late has been peppered with stories of football players fighting on the field, even coaches jawing at each other and looking as though Frazier-Ali were coming to a football stadium near you. As a long-time sports fan, football fanatic and youth football coach, it concerns me to see the number of incidents are continuing to grow and not nearly enough is being done to curtail the problem.
This past month we have seen college football coaches barking at each other, NFL coaches acting like drunken frat guys seeing who's is bigger, and lots of college and high school players getting into all out scrums on the field. It sickens me to see what this behavior is showing our young people today. Where is this coming from and what can be done about it?
Admittedly, the one of the main causes of this problem has been a long time coming. To those of us who have seen a generation or so of young kids growing up in sports, the problem is quite simply poor or non-existent parenting. So many young men grow up today with either no father figure, a hardly present father figure, or the ever popular "I couldn't make it to the NFL, but my son is sure as hell gonna live my dream for me" father figure.
Without a proper role model at home to show a young man how to earn respect, and how to act like someone who commands respect, kids are left with television, movies, video games, and the glorious wonder of peer-pressure to show them how to earn respect. So, if someone says something about mama, sis or a girlfriend; doesn't bow at the proper time, or seems to question your "manhood"; the response is to act like a WWE Roid Rage Monkey and start swinging.
In his first book, Coach Tony Dungy even talks of an episode where an All-Pro linebacker, a man nearly 30 years old flies off the handle and gets his team into dire circumstances because of a perceived slight made by an opposing player.
Amazing. A man who makes millions of dollars a year to play a game doesn't understand you cannot earn respect acting like a crazed meth addict running wild in a pharmacy? He didn't even understand respect has to be earned, it cannot be simply commanded, demanded or taken. And screw his teammates, his manhood was challenged. So what if the team suffered not once, but twice for his inability to handle himself like a man.
Now we can see the problem is extending upward into the coaching ranks. It crosses into all areas of football, it crosses socio-economic lines, it crosses racial lines,and it is getting worse.
So, how can it be addressed? Well, football cannot solve the parenting issue, but it sure can deal with the immediate on the field problems.
First, anyone who leaves the bench area and enters the field of play in a fight is immediately suspended. Hopefully for a 2-4 game minimum for a first offense. If it is your second offense, you lose the remainder of the season. If you kick or stomp on a player who is down, you are done for the season as well. And for the coaches, take them off the sideline.
Thankfully to date, none of the coaches have actually thrown punches; but to send a message, take the coaches and tell them to stay home for a week. If these coaches and players realize they are about to lose their livelihood, perhaps they will think twice about crossing the line to "defend their manhood". After all, is your definition of a man someone who behaves like a rabid dog, who will strike at anyone that looks at it wrong? No, that is an animal. A man will use the one thing he has over animals, his brain to determine the proper response.
You want the player talking smack about your family to shut up? Block him into the next time zone. Catch the ball. Tackle him. Run past or over him into the endzone. Do your job. Odds are he will either (A) shut up, (B) begin to lose focus on the game and get beat again and again, (C) look for someone else to bark at, (D) maybe, just maybe being to learn what respect is all about.
My alma mater, Leon High School made national news for a post-game fight with another school last month. Some of the those kids are done from playing football this year. As they should be. It is a privilege and not a right.
I don't pretend to have all the answers, certainly not in some short blog, but it is obvious the problem is getting worse, and more drastic steps are necessary to help curtail the problem. Come on NFL, NCAA, and high schools: get serious about this problem and make the consequences serious too.
Hopefully somewhere in all of this they will learn that earning respect starts by using that thing between your ears. It seems out of all the muscles these guys are using, that particular one is not getting any workout at all.
This past month we have seen college football coaches barking at each other, NFL coaches acting like drunken frat guys seeing who's is bigger, and lots of college and high school players getting into all out scrums on the field. It sickens me to see what this behavior is showing our young people today. Where is this coming from and what can be done about it?
Admittedly, the one of the main causes of this problem has been a long time coming. To those of us who have seen a generation or so of young kids growing up in sports, the problem is quite simply poor or non-existent parenting. So many young men grow up today with either no father figure, a hardly present father figure, or the ever popular "I couldn't make it to the NFL, but my son is sure as hell gonna live my dream for me" father figure.
Without a proper role model at home to show a young man how to earn respect, and how to act like someone who commands respect, kids are left with television, movies, video games, and the glorious wonder of peer-pressure to show them how to earn respect. So, if someone says something about mama, sis or a girlfriend; doesn't bow at the proper time, or seems to question your "manhood"; the response is to act like a WWE Roid Rage Monkey and start swinging.
In his first book, Coach Tony Dungy even talks of an episode where an All-Pro linebacker, a man nearly 30 years old flies off the handle and gets his team into dire circumstances because of a perceived slight made by an opposing player.
Amazing. A man who makes millions of dollars a year to play a game doesn't understand you cannot earn respect acting like a crazed meth addict running wild in a pharmacy? He didn't even understand respect has to be earned, it cannot be simply commanded, demanded or taken. And screw his teammates, his manhood was challenged. So what if the team suffered not once, but twice for his inability to handle himself like a man.
Now we can see the problem is extending upward into the coaching ranks. It crosses into all areas of football, it crosses socio-economic lines, it crosses racial lines,and it is getting worse.
So, how can it be addressed? Well, football cannot solve the parenting issue, but it sure can deal with the immediate on the field problems.
First, anyone who leaves the bench area and enters the field of play in a fight is immediately suspended. Hopefully for a 2-4 game minimum for a first offense. If it is your second offense, you lose the remainder of the season. If you kick or stomp on a player who is down, you are done for the season as well. And for the coaches, take them off the sideline.
Thankfully to date, none of the coaches have actually thrown punches; but to send a message, take the coaches and tell them to stay home for a week. If these coaches and players realize they are about to lose their livelihood, perhaps they will think twice about crossing the line to "defend their manhood". After all, is your definition of a man someone who behaves like a rabid dog, who will strike at anyone that looks at it wrong? No, that is an animal. A man will use the one thing he has over animals, his brain to determine the proper response.
You want the player talking smack about your family to shut up? Block him into the next time zone. Catch the ball. Tackle him. Run past or over him into the endzone. Do your job. Odds are he will either (A) shut up, (B) begin to lose focus on the game and get beat again and again, (C) look for someone else to bark at, (D) maybe, just maybe being to learn what respect is all about.
My alma mater, Leon High School made national news for a post-game fight with another school last month. Some of the those kids are done from playing football this year. As they should be. It is a privilege and not a right.
I don't pretend to have all the answers, certainly not in some short blog, but it is obvious the problem is getting worse, and more drastic steps are necessary to help curtail the problem. Come on NFL, NCAA, and high schools: get serious about this problem and make the consequences serious too.
Hopefully somewhere in all of this they will learn that earning respect starts by using that thing between your ears. It seems out of all the muscles these guys are using, that particular one is not getting any workout at all.
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