J.P. Losman was
making me nervous before he spoke last week at St. John Fisher College’s 5th
Annual Conference on Sportsmanship. The 23-year-old Bills quarterback gave the
keynote address before 246 athletes from 27 mostly Monroe County high schools.
He seemed uptight, as quarterbacks coach Sam Wyche warmed up the audience for
him. Losman’s hands were in his pockets and he shuffled his weight from side to
side.
This was just
Losman’s second public appearance, and it didn’t look like it was going to be
good. I’ve seen athletes fumble public speaking opportunities before. Former
Sabre Doug Bodger once got up at the Press-Radio dinner to tell a dirty joke
and then sit down. I recall how former Bills QB Rob Johnson dealt with public
appearances, and I inevitably wondered just what in his chest kept him alive.
So I didn’t expect
much from Losman. Thirty-six minutes later, however, I couldn’t recall a better
public presentation by a Buffalo Bill. Losman’s ability to convey his story and
connect with the kids was unrivaled — better than Doug Flutie, Drew Bledsoe,
and Jim Kelly.
He was even bold enough to stop his talk and chide a kid
who was apparently laughing in front of him. That was truly a rare occurrence
because, after all, the pro sports public relations manual says that when an
athlete speaks in public, he should do just about anything to avoid even the
possibility of offending someone. Losman evidently missed that page.
“What’s so funny, big
cat?” he asked the student, who might have just wet his pants. “I just want to
know, what’s so funny? Things like that, it’s kind of rude. I’m up here. I’m
kind of nervous myself. It’s a chance, an opportunity to get inside of you guys.
And somebody’s laughing. It’s disrespectful. I don’t appreciate it… Now I don’t
mean to call anybody out like that, but this is real life. People call each
other out. It’s OK. You know, you live and learn. You forgive.”
After that, Losman
commanded attention like Norman Schwarzkopf. If he displays that kind of bold
sensibility as one of the youngest Bills this season — and if he plays well,
obviously — maybe things will work out.
Disrespect was largely the focus of the sportsmanship conference. There is a feeling that player and
fan behavior at many events is coarse and out of control; that no one respects
the opposition anymore.
But I’m not sure you
can conclude that today’s era is any worse than it has ever been. I’d say it’s
about the same. It’s simply easier to recall the incidences that have happened
recently (partly because they’re broadcast 4 trillion times on TV), such as the
Pistons-Pacers fan-player brawl in Detroit last November; Temple coach John
Chaney sending out a player with the mission to commit hard fouls against St.
Joe’s; Fisher and Nazareth men’s basketball teams brawling last year; or School
of the Arts and Palmyra-Macedon boys’ basketball teams brawling last month.
I remember when there
was a near-riot between fans at the War Memorial after a Section V boys’
basketball semifinal between McQuaid and East in 1990. I remember watching an
Amerks game in the late ’80s and seeing a Binghamton Whaler climb onto the
stage to attack a fan who dumped a beer on the guy and/or verbally assaulted him.
And it’s been a little more than 20 years since the Rochester City School
District implemented the “fan ban” barring people from attending its boys’
basketball games after some bad behavior among fans.
So maybe coaches and
athletes haven’t learned much about sportsmanship, but the conference at St.
John Fisher is an attempt to help. I suggest that when players exhibit good
sportsmanship, it keeps them focused on their team’s mission to win. Bad
sportsmanship, especially if it’s about retribution, will distract from that
mission.
What’s particularly unfortunate is that the SOTA-Pal-Mac brawl pitted a city school against
a suburban school, hinting at racial overtones. Certainly, it did nothing to
further relations between the suburbs and the city. Ultimately, officials
canceled the game, but SOTA looked like the culprit as the city school district
announced it was canceling the rest of SOTA’s season, before reinstating the
school a little later, with just the guilty players kicked out.
Palmyra-Macedon also
imposed its own suspensions of involved players, but clearly, the city school
district’s actions indicated more culpability on the part of SOTA, at least in
the public eye. Ideally, it would have been better if the districts worked
together to create and adhere to a solution for both sides. The wavering looked
bad.
Overall, the incident
tears at what have been positive steps between city and suburban schools. City
football teams have started attending summer camps with suburban football
teams, allowing players to get to know one another outside the field of
competition. Clearly, when a prior relationship has been established, there is
less likely to be an altercation between those players. In pro sports, many of
the players do know each other, either from college or high school, or perhaps
they’ve played together on another pro team.
But fans don’t know
opposing fans or players, and that depersonalization makes it easier for them
to act like buffoons. And that’s where there are major problems. Fans just see
where the battle lines are drawn. They sit on one side of the gym and the
opposing fans on the other, and as far as they’re concerned the opposing fans
and players are simply obstacles to victory, nothing else.
It’s similar to the
relationship largely shared between suburban Monroe County residents and urban
Monroe County residents. They have their city. They have their suburbs. The
battle lines are drawn. They rarely meet each other.
Of course, it would
be impossible to have fans sit down with opposing fans and players and talk out
their problems. The best I can do is suggest that fans are cheering against
some parent’s kid, who has given up his free time and dedicated much of his
life toward playing on a team.
If you don’t respect
that, it’s kind of rude, big cat.
This article appears in Mar 9-15, 2005.
