In August of 2011, USA Today reported a violent outbreak which led to the eviction of 70 people from the premises, 12 arrests, the shooting of two people and one man being mercilessly beaten in a restroom.
Judging from the intensity of violence, one might assume that this occurred as a result of a gang war, or perhaps a civil rights protest gone awry. Guess again. It was at a National Football League preseason game that fans degenerated into raging barbarians, wreaking havoc upon the lives of strangers in the name of football during a 2011 NFL game between the Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers.
Though violence among sports fans may not always reach such extreme levels, this is by no means an isolated incident in the world of sports. According to the same article, the NFL averaged three arrests and 25 ejections from each stadium every week in 2010’s football season.
On another note, violent behavior isn’t merely restricted to the audience at sporting events.
“It’s the most perfect feeling in the world to know you’ve hit a guy just right, that you’ve maximized the physical pain he can feel. . . . You feel the life just go out of him. You’ve taken all this man’s energy and just dominated him,” said NFL player Michael Strahan in 2007.
I get the feeling that if the man wasn’t wearing a football jersey, a quote like this could earn him a ticket in line for a psychiatric evaluation.
At this point, we as a society need to step back and think objectively. Is it really OK that people are getting seriously injured due to aggression fueled by sports rivalry? Should a person act like a sadistic maniac so that he or she can fulfill the goal of thrusting a ball across a court or field? If you ask me, it’s not worth the threat to human safety.
In fact, I believe that one doesn’t have to physically hurt a person in order to go too far in sports aggression. Sitting near a crowd of people who are screaming bloody murder, berating players and referees, is one of the many things that makes sporting events unbearable for me.
Think about our own sports players at Southeastern. One wrong move can send a fusillade of insults hurling toward the player. Again, think objectively here. Why is the player being screamed at? Probably because he or she failed to kick, catch or hit a ball properly. Our players are college students. We can rest assured that on any given day, any college student will have something to be stressed out about. It’s not right to add emotional pressure to someone simply because they aren’t playing a game efficiently enough.
I’m not saying that sports shouldn’t be enjoyed. That’s what games are for. But no game is worth the price of human suffering, physical or emotional. Next time you attend a sporting event, my advice would be to chill out, relax and remember that it’s just a game.