Miami - Florida International Redux

The unseemly brawl between two football teams from colleges in metropolitan Miami got me thinking about the spoiled brats that pass for athletes among amateurs in such marquis sports locations and among the professional ranks. The fight that broke out at the Miami-Florida International football game on October 14 seemed less like a rivalry gone bad (let’s face it, FIU shares a city with “the U” not a level of program) than an indulgence of posturing that rose to thuggery. It’s the culture of elite programs, elite leagues, and elite media markets that accepts, and often encourages, the chest-thumping, indulge-me-cause-I’m-just-that-good way of thinking.

The Miami Hurricane football program has had a history of thug posing, which made their loss to straight-arrow Jo Pa’s Penn State squad for the 1986 national championship that much sweeter. Yet the intimidating swagger is becoming as commonplace in sports as the next rap CD cover. And the more casual it gets, the bigger the blowups are when things get out of hand.

Examples: the Ron Artest-led fight at the Pacers-Pistons game that carried into the stands and earned Artest a season-ending ban; Mike Tyson, who if he spars with a female boxer on his el-lame-o “world tour” will do in the ring what he used to do to ex-wife Robin Givens and other female conquests, not to mention the threats to eat Lennox Lewis’ children and the actual bites taken from Evander Holyfield’s ear; and don’t get me started on TO, the NFL’s answer to Barry Bonds in extreme talent and zero likeability, except Bonds didn’t try to kill himself or publicly feud with teammates.

Perhaps these are factors behind the NBA refereeing change that debuted in the current pre-season where virtually any gesture toward a referee’s call is subject to a technical foul ... a throwback to the pre-1970s college era where a player had to hold up his hand (horrors!) when a foul was called on him. Commissioner David Stern reportedly wants to get control over players’ deportment toward referees, something he saw as a negative in the eyes of fans and, therefore, bad for business.

Perhaps Stern is dealing with the harvest of pushing the NBA as an urban/hiphop culture sport to sell tickets. But while it could be argued that the NBA influences athletes in all major sports, the fact is pro and amateur athletes in many sports appear to show a deeper, exaggerated sense of self-importance and act as if their opponents (and sometimes their teammates) are theirs to intimidate.

We don't always know where the line is, the one that once crossed is too much. We endlessly debate whether Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame or forfeit a sure spot in Cooperstown because he bet on baseball. But incidents like the Miami-FIU brawl remind me that we should find a collective sense of where that line of behavior is and say "enough" when an athlete crosses it.