Tag Archives: Football

Choosing Wisely

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On the day of what can arguably be described as the biggest day in North American sports, Super Bowl Sunday, I find myself in a minority position when it comes to giving a damn. I’ve never really been a football fan – hockey and golf seem to hold my interest – and I’m definitely not in the habit of worshipping the ground these best-of-the-best athletes walk on. Now I’m not saying I’m a perfect human – I’m far from it – and I’ve been lucky to make my mistakes in private without the world standing around judging me.

That being said, my kids are starting to pay attention to what’s on the TV and are going to start to look to people that aren’t my wife and I as role models. As such, I started paying closer attention to the famous faces that SportsCentre plasters all over their highlight reels and I noticed something: a lot of them are little more than just really good athletes.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is a God-fearing fella with a few tattoos, a better than average passing arm, and seemingly no fear of running the ball. He takes the field for his first Super Bowl appearance today playing on the first professional sports team to openly support the gay and lesbian community. Now that’s a really big deal, and one that San Francisco player Chris Culliver came out and said he was not OK with. Now, that’s his choice, but I’ll be the first to tell you I’m not running out and getting my kids a Culliver jersey any time soon. If anything, I’ll be using him as an example of someone whom my kids should pay as little attention to as possible.

Unfortunately, the number of athletes on that list of mine is more than a few. It seems that for every incredible story on the field there’s an incredibly idiotic one that’s happening off of it. Pick your poison: religious extremists, misogynists, rapists, philanderers, racists, bigots, drug addicts, blood dopers, steroid abusers, liars, and cheaters. You can certainly find these people in among famous scientists, writers, and educators as well but the principal difference is the media is not often pushing them into our line of sight and hanging off their every word hoping for a sound bite they can use to open the show.

Now, the good news is we also have many respectable athletes to choose from as well. For every jerk with record setting statistic there’s another one I’d gladly hang a poster of on my wall. Sidney Crosby, the poster boy of the NHL, lived with Mario Lemieux for the first 5 years he was in Pittsburgh – to help with his transition from a small town kid to a big city superstar.  Here was a full grown, voting age adult with a job making millions of dollars a year, and a full entourage of advisers, coaches, and support staff living with his boss and mentor. No controversy, no scandal, no embarrassing photographs… just a pretty nice guy who happens to be a pretty amazing hockey player.

I suppose my wish is for the media – and the general public – to do a better job of distinguishing good athletes from good people, because at the end of the day they’re all just people. For all they do on and off the field, I think it’s important to remember they have their own problems, their own hurdles to overcome, life lessons to learn, or growing up to do. They also have their own opinions – which you don’t have to agree with. I know in a lot of cases I certainly don’t, and I used to get worked up over it, but I try not to any more. I’ve just stopped putting athletes on a pedestal and touting their virtues to the world because they happen to be rich and good at their jobs. At the end of the day they’re just a bunch of guys who excel at playing games.

I’ll acknowledge that fact they possess remarkable athletic skill, and I’ll be duly impressed by it, but after that I’ll be keeping a close eye on the ones I point out to my kids, because superstar athletes have just as much chance as the next guy of being absolutely bat shit crazy.

Go Niners (most of them)!

~Andrew

Controversy? Just Sweep it Over There Under the Rug

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Well, after a bit of noise on this topic this summer things pretty much quieted down – until yesterday. FIFA announced yesterday that Canadian team captain Christine Sinclair would receive and undisclosed fine and a 4 international game suspension for her comments after the Canadian semi-final loss at the Olympics this summer.

I for one think that this punishment [if you can call it that] sends the following message: “We are not going to let you get away with lobbing accusations at our officials, however, since we’re not prepared to discuss if there was any truth to your allegations here’s your slap on the wrist. Now everyone just stop talking about it.”

I know of at least one person who feels that Ms. Sinclair should be banished from soccer for life. He calls what was said “defamation”. Well, sir, it’s only defamation if what was said was untrue and in this case the waters appear cloudy enough that you’re going to have a hard rime proving that Christine’s comments were completely unfounded.

The official had been making questionable calls throughout the game and the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back – the call that referee Christiana Pedersen made that resulted in the kick that led to the tying goal – was so out of place that soccer fans and commentators had to struggle to find a case of that particular infraction having been called before. That’s an inconsistency that happened to occur at a crucial moment in a game, and Ms. Sinclair knew it. Everyone playing knew it, and everyone watching knew it. FIFA and the IOC knew it. The Americans definitely knew it. 

 In fact, one American player admitted afterwards she had been attempting to influence the referee the whole game. All Christine Sinclair – and many of the other Canadian players – did was call bullshit (and rightly so, in this writer’s opinion).

One thing I do know is that having played a number of officiated team sports at various levels there has always been a saying that, when found to be true, seemed to result in optimal results for both competing teams:

You know you had good referees when you can’t remember if they were there.
There are also a few other applicable phrases that come to mind:

Just let ’em play
Commonly used in hockey to indicate that it would be best if the teams were left to their own devices to decide an outcome. This usually results in minor infractions on both sides being ignored and the pace of the game being unusually high. This approach runs the risk that one side will attempt to take advantage of the loose rules, but more often than not it just creates an atmosphere where the players truly decide the outcome.

A strike in the 1st inning should be a strike in the bottom of the 9th
A baseball reference indicating that an umpire sets the tone for the game by calling balls and strikes a certain way – and remains consistent. Upsetting this consistency results in controversy later in the game when something that’s been called a strike all game suddenly becomes a ball. The manager’s punishment for arguing this usually results in an ejection (“getting tossed”) and lots and lots of yelling.

A penalty in the 1st period is a penalty in overtime
A corollary to the aforementioned baseball saying. If a hockey referee calls a penalty early in the game, but doesn’t maintain consistency, this results in confusion among the players as to what is acceptable and what is not, and in both my examples ultimately allows the official to have more control over the outcome.

There’s a hierarchy for all officials in all sports at all levels. You’ll often hear sportscasters talk about it before important games. “This is so-and-so’s 5th Stanley Cup Final appearance” or “So-and-so has worked hard for the last few years and deserves to be officiating in his first playoff game”. Officials work their way up the ladder and the best ones get the important games. Referees at that level, for those games, should simply be better than the rest. Not infallible, but certainly the cream of the crop. 

An official should never decide a game, especially one of magnitude, and that’s exactly what happened this past summer.

Now, I wouldn’t say that this controversy is anything close to what the NHL had to deal with back in 1999 with the whole toe-in-the-crease incident, but it’s in the same ballpark and I’m afraid that the comments and decisions that have come down are as good as it is going to get for either side. 

 ~afb~