THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 9, 1995 TAG: 9508090640
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
By adding guidelines aimed at curbing the hot-dog antics of excitable players, the NCAA Football Rules Committee is attempting to legislate sportsmanship back into the game.
What a shame. The spirit of sportsmanship should come from within an athlete or, at the very least, from his coach.
Suddenly, this is starting to sound like a lecture. Well, maybe that's one of the problems. Not enough adults are addressing the young. In other words, too many grown-ups take their cues from the kid kulture, instead of vice versa.
When players act like clowns, when they perform sack dances or strike embarrassing poses, it's a sign that society accepts jerkiness. Celebrates it, for that matter. Values it over dignity and class.
The NCAA, then, is going up against powerful cultural forces. It's yet to be seen if it can stem the tide with mere threats of 15-yard penalties for newly defined unsportsmanlike conduct.
It may be too late, but give the NCAA credit for caring. The rules committee has even produced a video illustrating what will now be considered excessive jerkiness on the field. This in itself is a commentary on our times.
Starting this season, the NCAA has expanded its definition of cheesy stunts to include players who remove their helmets immediately after scoring a touchdown.
As the NCAA sees it, players who rip off their headgear before reaching the sideline - the players call it ``popping your top'' - do more than expose bad haircuts to TV audiences. They demonstrate the erosion of sportsmanship on the playing fields of America.
Officials have been instructed to slap a 15-yard penalty on anyone caught violating the new helmet decorum. A second offense in the same game means automatic ejection.
Will the zebras apply the rules fairly? What about players who doff their hardhats and kneel in prayer after scoring? Will they be subject to the same penalty?
The NCAA may be setting itself up for a debate worthy of both Beano Cook and Pat Robertson.
At the risk of being portrayed as the Fun Police, the rules committee wants to penalize ``all actions or gestures that are prolonged or call attention to one player over the rest of the team, including posing, kneeling, shooting imaginary guns or turning away from teammates to seek individual attention from the crowd.''
Personally, I don't mind a player strutting or waving his finger after a touchdown. For sure, football would be a classier spectacle if today's athletes followed the advice of the late Paul Brown. The legendary coach thought that players who run the football into the end zone should act like they have been there before. But this is the '90s, an era of the jerk as hero.
At this point, I would settle for football players refraining from moronic posturing after making elementary tackles. It would be a start in the right direction.
Naturally, this all comes down to generational differences. Kids who wear baseball caps backward cannot be expected to see things the same as middle-aged fossils.
To a certain extent, agents of the Fun Police (game officials) are now being asked to take these coaches off the hook.
This should lead to less clownishness on the field, fewer outbreaks of jerky behavior. But it won't stop us from wondering who really is running the asylums. by CNB