Quote:
Originally Posted by ajmc
Then there's the coach who wants to create a scene, it can be for any number of reasons; he might delude himself into thinking it will make a difference, he's trying to intimidate, coerce or take control or he's trying to show off infront of the players, spectators or whomever.
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Dammit, a football game
is a scene. Everyone who's willfully in the vicinity is there to intimidate, coerce, or show off to one or more other persons. Yeah, there's a contest in there too somewhere with actual skill involved and score kept, but it's not a judicial proceeding. That's why complaints by officials here about complaints about them by a coach to his players, or in another thread about spectators yelling out fouls with the implication that the covering official missed them, make me think some officials just aren't in the right spirit at a game.
People at a game who have even a tangential relationship to it are all instant experts who have (usually temporary) negative opinions that they might express about everyone around them, because all the
other people there are morons -- the coaches on both the home and visiting team, players on both teams, some lady in the 3rd row of the bleachers, and of course the officials. If you're in the audience and you don't tell the people around you vociferously what a moron player/coach/official/trainer/hot dog vendor X is, then you're not engaged enough! If you're on the bench and you don't tell your teammates that the coach is a moron for not putting the bunch of you in, you're not engaged enough. Complaining
about a 3rd party, rather than
to that 3rd party, is a way of expressing solidarity and spirit. And everyone usually understands this is all role playing, and not to take it personally. Once in the Felt Forum at Madison Sq. Garden at a New York Knights Arena Football game I attended, the crowd even briefly broke out in imitation of a TV commercial series then running for beer, one faction yelling in unison, "Less filling!" and the other, "Tastes great!"
You all recognize this. The difference is that I acknowledge it as
good fun, while some of you don't. I don't mind your flagging insults directed at an "adversary" (an opponent or official), which helps show you have control of the game, but when you start overhearing things and getting sensitive about people's appearing more expert than you about your jobs, that's where I have a problem. Even if someone intends you to "overhear", the fact that they make a
show of directing the insult
not at you I think is sufficient deference to show they respect your
formal authority, which I believe is all that should be asked.