This past weekend, after a long, grueling, disappointing, and disheartening week, I was looking forward to a short road trip to Eureka, MT with my sister, to catch some Class B football playoff action between the Whitehall Trojans and the Lincoln County Lions. What started off as an exciting day, ended in more heartbreak and disappointment.
Before I go any further, I want to say that I am beyond proud of my Trojans. You boys worked your asses off all season and did so well. You should be incredibly proud of yourselves, how hard you worked and what it meant to your community. I’m not the slightest bit disappointed in you. You conducted yourselves with dignity until the very end. I am heartbroken for you, that you didn’t get the shot at state, but I could not be more proud of the season that you did have.
With that being said, my disappointment stems from how these boys were treated by the opposing side’s fans, referees, and announcer. I have witnessed thousands of hours of junior high and high school athletic contests, as a spectator, a stats keeper, a scorekeeper, and a member of the pep band, and I have never seen such un-sportsman like behavior from the adults. It hurts my heart and it disappoints me, more than un-sportsman like conduct from any player ever could.
One of the reasons why I believe high school sports to be important is that it teaches respect. For many players, this is when they are taught respect, earn respect, learn and lose respect. Yet how can we expect these kids to grow up to be respectful and respectable, on and off the playing field, if the authority figures in these situations are constantly showing their opponents disrespect?
This weekend’s contest was not a fair contest between two hard-working teams. It was a lopsided matchup between two hard working teams, biased refs, rude fans, and most notably, a completely disrespectful announcer. As at any sporting event, the person in the announcer's stand is likely from that place and will inevitably be biased towards the home team. This man was more than just biased towards his home team. He was downright rude from the very beginning when “forgetting” to announce one of Whitehall’s starting lineups.
Throughout the game, he cheered openly for the Eureka team, made obnoxious noises into the microphone whenever the ball was turned over and announced Whitehall players by the wrong names. He showed a lack of respect for the hard work that the Trojans had put in to make it to the semifinal game. This man, a grown adult, disrespected the blood, sweat, and tears of these boys, in an effort to show misguided support for the hometown team and quite frankly, I find it unacceptable.
You may view this piece as me whining about how unfair life is and that I should just get over it because life isn’t fair. While that’s true, life isn’t fair, I’m not talking about fairness. I’m talking about respect. What we are lacking in this country is respect. Respect for each other, our beliefs and differences. We don’t have to agree in order to respect.
We, as adults, parents, friends, fans, mentors, coaches, refs, athletic personnel, have to do better when it comes to expecting respect from our kids and showing them respect in return. We have to do a better job of instilling sportsmanship and values and respect on the field. If we want our student-athletes to grow up and be respectful and respectable, we have to model that ourselves.
