Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
February 16, 2001, Washington Post

XFL: Extremely Bad Sportsmanship

I think the new extreme football league is a bad idea.

Not because the XFL is a crazy mix of minor league football and the World
Wrestling Federation. Or because the teams have extremely violent names like
the New York Hitmen, the Orlando Rage and the Memphis Maniax. Or even
because no one should be playing football in New York or Chicago in the middle
of winter.

As bad as these things are, the worst part of the XFL is that it encourages bad
sportsmanship.

In fact, the XFL doesn't just encourage bad sportsmanship, it makes it part of the game.

Take all the trash talking: It begins when the players are introduced. Someone
sticks a microphone in each player's face so he can sound off like some tough
WWF wrestler.

And the showboating: After every play, XFL players dance and point fingers at
the opponents. The cameras zoom in so fans don't miss a single wiggle or waggle.

Sports were not always this way. Not so long ago, players scored touchdowns
or sacked quarterbacks with matter-of-fact confidence. They didn't dance around or pound on their chests. Basketball players dunked the ball and moved into position for the next play. They didn't flex their muscles for the camera and bump chests with their teammates.

But something happened. Years ago, some great athletes were very bad sports and got a lot of attention. In fact, some bad sports became big stars.

Muhammad Ali was one. He was a great, three-time heavyweight boxing champion and I, like a lot of other people, admired him and still do. But he was a terrible sport. Ali made fun of his opponents, called them names, and bragged that he was "the greatest." Ali was very entertaining, but I think he started athletes down a bad path.

Or how about tennis champ John McEnroe? He won Wimbledon three times and the U.S. Open four times. But McEnroe also set records for tossing tennis rackets and screaming at officials.

Pretty soon, more and more athletes were trying to be braggers and badmouths like Ali and McEnroe. After all, fans and the media paid attention to them. Polite players -- good sports such as basketball's Tim Duncan, tennis's Pete Sampras or football's Barry Sanders -- were considered less exciting or less colorful.

Sanders scored more than 100 touchdowns in his career and he never did any dancing in the end zone. He just handed the ball to the referee like making a touchdown was something he did all the time.

Now we have a whole league, the XFL, looking for a different kind of player. The XFL wants the pushers and the pointers, the braggers and the badmouths.

And I think that is a bad idea.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Are you an XFL fan? Is Fred Bowen a boring old coot?
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