Shane Warne, Marlon Samuels, Lance Armstrong, Kurt Tippett – all recent examples of individuals breaking the moral code known as ‘sportsmanship.’
But should we be at all surprised with such occurrences in the 21st century?
Put a foot wrong on a sporting field nowadays, or indeed off it, should you be an elite level sportsperson, and you become public enemy number one.
The level of scrutiny, and at times vitriol, is far more rampant nowadays as a result of the Internet and various forms of social media.
It is akin to being surrounded by accusers cloaked in the robes of the Inquisition.
In the past you had to bother to pick up a pen and paper and write to a newspaper editor or wait on hold to vent your spleen on a talkback radio program.
Nowadays it is as simple as sending out a tweet from whichever electronic device is your current tool of choice.
Somewhat strangely we have this notion that sportsmanship in 2013 should be upheld as it was in the 1950s or any other distant era.
In many ways that belief is based on naivety.
It is actually pushing the boundaries of logic to expect that sport and its participants continue to uphold the fine traditions of behaviour that we have long expected from those on display on various grounds, courts and pitches.
The world has undergone a seismic shift in recent times with regard to the moral code that is deemed to underpin our society.
Let’s journey back to 1980, my last year at school – and yes, I did get all the way to year 12.
I was educated through the public school system in Perth in those dozen years.
And back in year 12, some 33 years ago, life in high school was very different to what it is today.
In my final year at school, I would never have contemplated a classmate calling a teacher an effin’ so-and-so.
And if a fellow student had spat in a teacher’s face, struck them or thrown a chair in their direction I would most likely have gone into a catatonic state.
But, very sadly, those practices are commonplace nowadays.
The Teacher’s Union in Western Australia registers in excess of 1000 complaints each year of a physical or extreme verbal nature against its membership.
Most, if not all of those episodes, simply happen beneath the public radar – unreported and unrecognised by the community at large.
Acts that used to be newsworthy in their infancy now go unreported unless they are of a very extreme nature.
The act of glassing an individual – shoving a glass or glass bottle into someone’s face – used to be an extremely rare occurrence.
In Perth in 2010 it happened on 67 occasions and only a handful made it into the media.
Police stated that the vast majority of the glassing incidents came not as a result of a fight but in response to a verbal altercation – a nice way to get your point across.
The spike in one punch deaths has grown alarmingly in recent times, as have the random assaults where victims are singled out by groups and bashed senseless for no apparent reason, save for their own perverted gratification and entertainment.
All these worrying trends, including an ever-growing disrespect for police officers and others in positions of civil authority, is happening around us every day.
And in the main we have become immune to it.
We merely cast it off as ‘that’s the way things are nowadays’.
Thankfully we have yet to reach the situation in Johannesburg and New York where murders often no longer appear in the first dozen pages of the newspaper.
Here in Australia, and in most first world countries nowadays, we have been consumed by a different way of life where violence, drug use and other serious levels of crime have become almost the norm – it is simply the way life is in the 21st century.
It happens all around us and when it comes to much of the violence and drug related activity it occurs in the precincts that many of our young sportsmen and women inhabit – entertainment and nightclub zones.
Stepping around a bloodied body or crossing the road to avoid being caught up in a physical altercation is commonplace.
We see it, first hand or in the media, and live amongst it every day.
And those same people who now live in this increasingly warped new world also play sport on the weekend.
They do not spend the rest of their time in a sensory deprivation chamber immune from the day-to-day happenings within society.
Much of the moral fabric of our society has changed dramatically over the last couple of decades.
We have been forced to cop and accept it.
Yet, for whatever strange reason, we still expect sport to be played as it always was; with sportsmanship, respect for officialdom and codes of behaviour adhered to.
In these times that we live in that is a rather fanciful belief.
Given the major degradation in our everyday way of life in recent decades why should we expect that the three or so hours where individuals are playing sport will be totally quarantined from the society that surrounds them for the other 165 hours each week?
It is fanciful to consider that if the law of the land and the moral code that was formulated to protect and govern our society for so long is being eroded that it won’t have a potential effect on individuals who cross the white line and enter the realm of sport.
That realm does not sit apart from society. It sits amidst it.
Many of the unsavoury things that we see in sport are often a manifestation of our own communities.
Sport is often dubbed a ‘microcosm of life’, and that being the case, we have to expect that we will see life in all its forms in the sporting arena, both the good and bad.
Perhaps rather than trying to get sportspeople to behave better we as a whole have to try and get society to function better.
Let’s face it, I would rather have someone like Warne verbally abuse me and toss a ball at me underarm than shove a glass in my face.
Yet, when something happens on a sporting field we blow it up so that it takes on a status often accorded a murderer by whacking it on the front page of the newspaper.
A lot of times in life you reap what you sew.
And if what we reap on the playing fields is at times unpalatable it may well be because the general environment isn’t always conducive.
Let’s get life in perspective a little more.
Very few things on a sporting field come anywhere near many of the incidents in society that never make the media.
We are what we have largely made ourselves or allowed ourselves to be made into.
And when it comes to sport there will be a flow on affect.
To think otherwise is neither practical nor sensible.
Garcia
Guest
"Just miles from your doorstep, hundreds of men are given weapons and trained to kill. The government calls it the Army, but a more alarmist name would be... The Killbot Factory. "
The Dish
Guest
Valid point though
Kev
Guest
He exudes many things neither of which are sportsmanship and courtesy. Cockiness, arrogance and if the trials for the London Olympics was any indication, an attitude of entitlement are a few things that come to mind when Steffenson is mentioned.
Australian Rules
Guest
"Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?" "Yes I would, Kent. "
Seriously, Who says Oi?
Guest
Then again, the whole of metro NYC is well over 19 million people.
AndyMack
Guest
Yep, a sorry state. Agree with you on that one. Just a bit of greed and "what can i get out of this" mentality creeping in.....
AndyMack
Guest
Lets not forget Jonesy's slightly racist comment towards Gray....
The High Shot
Roar Pro
A conservative culture like ours reeks of righteous hypocrisy and the flames are fanned by the sensationalist media. Nearly everyone's outrage glands burst with bile ready to be pumped into the body and spewed liberally.
The High Shot
Roar Pro
If it had been AFL it would have been a non issue. If it had been NRL, every news outlet in the country would have screamed blue murder, 4 corners would do an investigation, sponsors would run for cover and the words "code in crisis" would be echoing loud and clear.
Respect an emotion? So if you are happy you will have respect, and if you are unhappy you will not? sorry mate, respect is something you are taught by your parents.
Yeah look not all kids are bad, there is more to bringing up kids than getting hidings, parental influence in all parts of life plays a big role.
Dadiggle
Guest
Freedom is always taken never given. Human rights are individual rights stated by a states constitution. Which means it can be changed too see fit for who ever is in power. Also it may appear the highest law yet when a person gets arreste you ttake away his right to freedom of movement. It has nothing to do with respect which is a emotion.
Sailosi
Guest
Your a cricket expert and you asked who Tony Gray is, wow!
pope paul v11
Guest
It is quite interesting though Glenn as this wasn't the era when everyone went off like a pork chop at a dismissal, even Bradman's. Clearly the Poms thought it was straightforward , started to gather around to say " well done old chap" and where flabbergasted when he didn't toddle off, well except for old Wally. Not that the Don may not have been correct, within his rights and was in fact deemed to have been correct, the interesting thing is he stood his ground when it was highly unusual to do so.
BennO
Guest
Yeah I get that part of it and I my parents were the same as yours and as the saying goes, it did me no harm. But my wife's parents were different. Never laid a hand on em and they all turned out well too. Really well. I agree there are some crazy parenting ideas out there and you just look and shake your head in wonder, but I see plenty of good kids too, raised by different methods. Anyway the upshot of all this is I think it's too hard to generalize about this. But it doubly reinforces to me that we should very much expect good sporting behavior in professional sport. We should demand it because respect and manners will be forever important and sport has a wonderful potential to uphold ideals. Kumbaya.
Glenn Mitchell
Expert
Have certainly wondered about the motives of some sportsmen but for people to say Warne should have been banned for life is totally ridiculous!
Glenn Mitchell
Expert
Hi Sheek, totally agree with you. The Warne/Samuels incident whilst unsavoury was blown out of all proportion. In the Age newspaper 25% of 3900 who responded to a poll about the penalty said Warne should have been suspended for life!! If that is not an overly ridiculous reaction I don't know what is. What's next, the death penalty for something more severe than Warne's actions? It is another example of people placing a ridiculous emphasis on sportspeople's behaviour.
I thought it the best wat to describe it. but let me expand on my theory. when I grew up, I got a hiding when I was naughty. At school we weren't spanked by a cane, or a cricket bat in woodwork shop made from a loose plank lying around. We were disciplined in a way where there were no illusions as to who was who in the zoo. These days kids have so many human right laws that are their to protect them (which is nothing wrong with), but there is a downside to this. HOw does one reason with a child of different ages, when in the old days a hiding was sufficient? Some things should not be reasoned about. you break your dads lawnmower in the 60's and 70's you get a hiding. Your dad didn't sit around a table for an hour and explain to you why it was wrong, he slanked you, then told you to respect ohter peoples belongings, If you were rude, he'd wack you. Now I am not saying go to the exptreme. but with the human rights laws for kids these days, there is no consequence. Because there is little or no consequence, they have little or no respect for authority.
Jack
Guest
No crime Glenn. Just like Justin Langer against Pakistan and countless others. Other countries view it differently just as we do when we feel cheated. It's all relative, that's all.
sheek
Roar Guru
Glenn, There is a certain standard of behaviour that isn't acceptable in any era. In classrooms around the country, there's been so much fear of litigation that discipline has crumbled. Society is responsible & society will ultimately pay the price. I guess we're beginning to see the fallout of that in binge drinking & assault occasioning death. But I have to say, I've seen it much worse. With rugby league in the 70s & 80s, stiff-arm tackles, straight-arm coat-hangers, late & blind hits, groin busters, head-butts were all 'de rigeur.' And that was play just 'on the ball!' Much the same happened in Aussie rules on & off the ball. In cricket, the Australian team of the 70s took sledging to new & dangerous heights. The Windies of the 80s were ill-disciplined, kicking over stumps & shouldering umpires when decisions didn't go their way. John McEnroe regaled us with his temper tantrums & "surely you can't be serious" to the poor chair umpire. Ben Johnson was the biggest drug cheat in sport, wiped out after winning the Seoul (1988) 100m crushingly. Left in his wake were former & future Olympics 100m champions - Carl Lewis & Linford Christie - over both of whom the cloud of suspicion continues to hover. Glenn, I guess it's sometimes easy to forget how it was. The 1970s was the era of recreational drugs, manly drinking (pre-RBT) for bonding purposes & heavy smoking. It was also the decade that fashion forgot, but it was also a time I went from teens to early 20s. It was also a violent era. The assassination & race riots of the 60s led to skyjacking in the 70s & the 1972 Munich murders of Israeli athletes. But there was still heroism to be found. I loved the 70s despite all its flaws, & I didn't think the world was ending back then. I think I'm going to have to witness a whole lot worse than Warne yelling at Samuels & grabbing his shirt, before I feel the world is caving in. It wasn't a good look & shouldn't be tolerated, but there sure has been a lot worse in the past.....