Maybe There Is Hope

On the program Sunday Morning there was piece on a school building in a little town in Missouri that was recently named after a woman named Claudine Wilson. Claudine is the schools janitor, but she also takes on a lot of other positions at the schhol (e.g. school bus driver, lawn mower, maintenance technician and back up secretary). So it sounds like she is very much a worthy candidate to have the local school named after her. However, what really was interesting (at least to me) were the kids that were interviewed in the piece. They recognized and described what they thought about Claudine. They recognized that she worked hard for them and that she was a good person. A couple of them were asked if they would like to be like her and they said, Yes most definitely. So maybe there is hope that some of these kids are getting exposed to real role models.

This week in College and Pro football there was some very interesting games with unexpected outcomes. However, a lot of this was overshadowed by poor sportsmanship and fighting by players and teams. I will be honest it seems like poor sportsmanship is becoming the trend in sports

The Ohio State vs Michigan games is a intense rivalry. Jennifer and I got to experience that when we lived in Findlay, Ohio. The coaches for both those teams can probably lose every game but if they win that game they will probably keep their job. They can also win every game and lose that game and be sent kicking the can down the street. Ryan Day the coach for Ohio State is currently in that seat with three straight losses to Michigan. He better have the old resume polished up, because he will probably not be coaching in Columbus much longer.

Now the fight that occurred at the end of that game was ugly. All because the Michigan players displayed poor sportsmanship. They went and try to plant the Michigan flag in the center of the Ohio State field and the losing Ohio State players were having none of that and a melee broke out to the point where mace was used by police officers to break it up. They were also several other fights in big rivalry games and then in the pro games there was also some poor displays of sportsmanship. There was a player on Pittsburgh that had two big plays but immediately got called for unsportsmanlike penalties, which cost his team. A Houston Texans player seriously injured Trevor Laurence with a illegal hit.

Now it would be easy to blame this behavior on poor discipline and poor coaching, and to some degree that would be correct. The Michigan coaching staff should have never allowed that to happen. Yes it was a big win, especially for a Michigan team that was the defending National Champion but has had a rough season this year.

However, in my opinion the root of all of this behavior is poor parenting. We have become a society where parents will not allow coaches, teachers etc to discipline and teach children to be good sports.

If a teacher or coach disciplines a kid, they face the likelihood that the parents will be in talking to there boss about getting them fired. I know across the country it is becoming harder and harder to find personnel to referee/officiate games. The main reason for this is harassment of these referees/officials by parents and fans. Very sad. This is getting so bad that some high school games have been canceled in some of the smaller communities around the country.

The easy answer to this is that parents teach their kids good sportsmanship from both sides. How to be good losers and how to be good winners and then to practice what they preach when they are in the stands. Another option may be to give people who referee/officiate games a tax break. Hell we give billionaires all kinds of tax breaks let’s give people who are giving back to the community a break.

Well I have probably beat this horse to death, but that my two cents on this. By the way I personally had some displays of poor sportsmanship over the years, but I certainly heard about and paid for it by both my coaches and parents.