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Originally Posted by Snaqwells
It's not an either/or scenario, Jeff. The problem is too often these guys are role models instead of parents, teachers, etc. It's not right, and it's not ideal. H3ll, I think it's a sure sign of major societal problems. While it may or may not be the way things should be. It's the way they are. Barkley may bemoan the fact all he wants; it's his right. But his money came from people who looked up to him at one level or another.
I like Barkley, I always have; but I think he was wrong on this.
Last week I had two wide open layups cancelled by shoves from behind. I ruled the first an intentional; and my partner ruled the second one flagrant. Obviously this happened before the brawl in New York; but how much of it is some sort of trickle down effect from kids who see the NBA players as people to emulate?
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I think the people who tend to overplay the issue of athletes as role models are the adults. Just like the media plays up the issues of video games and assumes that violent video games are played by 10 year olds rather than what the average gamer really is, 33 years old.
My point is there have always been fights at sporting events. There are fights when athletes on any level get together and emotions are high. There were fights in the 70s, 80s and 90s in the NBA and involving some of the best players in the game. Dr. J, Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Reggie Miller and Moses Malone just to name a few all had notable fights when I was growing up and I never wanted to do that in a game. There are fights every season with baseball teams that throw at each other and all the benches clear. There were fights with fans in Chicago at both Wrigley and Comisky Park (at the time) in the past 5 years (Dodgers at Wrigley and fans coming out of the stands at Comisky). Every other game there is a fight in the NHL. I remember a time when the benches were allowed to clear. Then the NHL cracked down and allowed fighting but ejected players for leaving the bench. Hockey is the only sport that allows players to fight and still stay in the game. This year in NASCAR not only did drivers go at it by throwing helmets at cars and pushing matches after trading paint, but girlfriends got into it off the track as well. There were fights across the world in Soccer situations; even the World Cup had a head butt from a star player and was ejected in the Final game. Let us not mention all the fights in Europe during club league games. There was even an incident last year where flares were thrown on the field and hit a player and FIFA did not allow fans of this team to go to these stadiums. The stadiums were completely empty during sanctioned FIFA games. Did the kids not see these events?
My point is if you do not know the history, you tend to repeat it. There are a lot of ugly moments in sports and this was just one of many. I know in my state there were a few incidents where fans got into fights and games were cancelled long before the Artest situation ever took place. These incidents are just an example of how violent our society is and sports just reflect this. We are in a war for God's sake. It is not like these are the only bad things we see on TV. We just live in a 24 hour news cycle and SportsCenter comes on 20 times a night. When Dr. J and Larry Bird got into fisticuffs, SportsCenter only came on at 10:00pm and if you missed it, you likely did not see the highlights until the next day. If you did not watch those highlights, you did not see them again. There was no internet or UTube.com or On Demand source to watch anything that took place in the world. College students at one time were dying on college campus because of riots. How many riots have you seen in today’s society? You have to put some things in perspective. I am not saying kids never are influenced by anything that takes place, but they have a lot more bad examples than what happen in the NBA this weekend.
Peace