Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, November 26, 2004, Washington Post

A Black Eye for Sports

A week later, the tape of the fight between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit fans sticks with me like a bad dream. I am still stunned to watch Ron Artest bound over rows of courtside chairs to attack a fan, Jermaine O'Neal land a punch and the fans shower the Pacers with beer, abuse and hatred as they ran off the court.

What can anyone say about such craziness?

Let's start with the easy stuff.

Rule one: No fan should ever throw anything at a player or at the field of play. Such "fans" should be arrested and not allowed back to the games for a long time. Any fan who sees someone throw something should report the offender to the police. Grown-ups have to help keep these games safe for kids.

Rule two: Players should never go into the stands. No excuses, no explanations. By handing out long suspensions to those Pacers who did go into the stands after Detroit fans, National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern has made that rule clear.

That's the easy part. Now for the hard stuff.

Maybe sports have gotten too big. It seems to me that folks these days -- the fans and the players -- are taking sports way too seriously. Think about it: All this fighting and screaming last Friday was over an NBA game in November between the Pacers and the Pistons. And the Pacers were ahead by 15 points with 45 seconds to go.

I like sports as much as anyone, but maybe there are too many games, too much 24-hour-a-day sports coverage and too many coaches talking about "gut checks" and "must-wins."

Goodness knows there is too much money in sports. But just because athletes make millions of dollars doesn't mean what they do is very important. Athletes are not doctors, nurses, firefighters or teachers. Still, we treat athletes as if they are the most important people in the world.

It's not just professional and big-time college sports that I am talking about. People also take high school sports and kids' sports too seriously. Some 8-year-olds play on three teams a season. Ten-year-olds spend weekends and holidays at tournaments instead of with their families. Parents scream at referees and sue coaches. Some people act as if a middle school or high school game is a life-and-death struggle instead of an opportunity to have some healthy competition and maybe learn a few life lessons.

Last Friday night's fight suggests we all need to take a timeout. Everybody should take a deep breath and stop making such a big deal about sports.

Does this mean kids and their parents shouldn't care about the games they play or cheer for their favorite teams? I didn't say that. You can still try your hardest and root, root, root for your team. Just try to remember that these games, whether pro or recreation league, and whether we are watching or playing, are just games. They're supposed to be fun.

And what I saw last Friday in Detroit is not fun.