The Oversensative Society

Last night I was watching my fraternity's flag football game when controversy reared its ugly head. My fraternity battled another for the ultimate gridiron glory: the intermural flag football championship. Leading 6-0, one of our receivers made a spectacularly athletic catch in the end zone. However, the referee decided that he was out of bounds and the catch and the score was all for naught. One of the players said that was an awful call and the end result of this opinionated statement was the team's second unsportsmanlike conduct and resulted in a forced forfeit of the football championship. The first unsportsmanlike conduct occurred when the player who scored the first touchdown spiked the ball in excitement of the big touchdown.

Despite my rooting interest, this disqualification raises interesting questions. When did we as a society become so wimpy that athletic competitions are decided by sportsmanship and not athletic prowess. When did the feelings of the players and referees involved become more important than the competition itself. Our society now believes we should give every kid a trophy for merely participating in sports. We believe in no cut policies for high school sports teams. We live in the days when high school students can letter in speech and debate, band, theater and even student council. Let's say everyone wins who shows up and plays by the rules. These ideologies defeat the purpose of sports.

I understand the necessity of sportsmanship rules in sports, but preventing players from celebrating and spiking a football after a big play hurts nobody. Questioning a referees potentially bad call is well within the rights of players. In fact the referees being fallible is the reason the NFL and NCAA implemented instant replay. I'm obviously not suggesting the implementation of instant replay in flag football, but people should be allowed to complain if they believe a referee is making a mistake. The feelings of the referees should be the last thing considered in athletic competition. Immediately after Jim Joyce made an awful call costing Armando Galarraga a perfect game, a study was released saying he was the best umpire in baseball. I suspect this survey was doctored to boost Joyce's self esteem.

We need to return to the days when people were rewarded with trophies for merit, not for participation. We need to go back to the days when varsity athletes were the only ones rewarded with letters. We need to return to the days when referees were heckled for bad calls and players won games based on who had the highest score and not who played the nicest.