Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

When an NFL wide receiver can single-handedly ruin a football team and still find a job somewhere … when a professional football player can get implicated in a murder and still be revered as the most devastating linebacker since Lawrence Taylor … when an Ivy League football team gets involved in a post-game brawl … when college football players are allowed to still put on a uniform following one of the ugliest brawls in history, it is all too clear that the inmates are running the asylum.

I have seen a lot of different responses to the brawl between the University of Miami and Florida International and isn’t it odd that the only person who lost his job his the ex-player broadcasting in the booth for Comcast Sports Southeast?

Former Miami player Lamar Smith made comments that weren’t derogatory and couldn’t be called inflammatory or inciting because the incident was in full swing, pardon the pun, at the time – they were just stupid.

Neither coach Larry Coker of Miami nor Don Strock of Florida International lost their job and all but three players or the 30 or so implicated (there sure seemed to be more players out on that field, didn’t there?) have been suspended or dismissed outright from their teams.

Does that seem like enough?

Now I have always thought college basketball analyst Dick Vitale to be teetering on the edge of hysteria, but he was right when he said that anyone involved in the brawl should never again put on a Division I uniform.

Never again.

I also think it’s time that the NCAA – which never seems to get anything right – start cracking down severely on unsportsmanlike behavior.

Like dancing on a team’s logo at midfield, right?

Any outward sign of such behavior – dancing on the logo, bowing to the opposing crowd after a touchdown, and any flagrant celebration following a play on the field – should be penalized harshly and enforced with ejections.

Of course, we can’t expect the University of Miami to come down too hard on it’s football program, can we? After all, president Donna Shalala knows exactly how much money the program brings into the university.

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I came across a piece on the history of football in Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader and it lends a humorous perspective to the brawl between Miami and Florida International.

In 1827, the sophomore class at Harvard challenged the freshman class to a game of ball on the first Monday of the new academic year. There were very few rules – if any – and while the players (on which there was no limit to the number on each side) did kick around an inflated pig’s bladder (hence, pigskin) the “game” was little more than an organized street brawl.

According to Allison Danzig in The History of American Football, “the game consisted of kicking, pushing, slugging and getting angry. Anyone who felt like joining in and getting his shins barked, his eyes blacked or his teeth knocked out was free to do so.”

The game became an annual affair and soon was referred to as, “Bloody Monday.” In 1860, the game had gotten so bloody the university finally banned football.

See, things were not too serene in the old days.

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It should be noted, I think, that prior to last week’s high school football game between Bunnell and Newtown High School at Blue & Gold Stadium, the Bulldogs motivated themselves while dancing on the big N in the middle of the field at Blue & Gold Stadium as the Nighthawks tried their own tactic of warming up on the back fields and only showing up at B&G right before the kick.

No one took outward offense. No fights broke out.

And a good, clean football game was played.

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Speaking of that game, it sure was nice to see Dr Evan Pitkoff, Newtown superintendent of schools, take time out of his very busy schedule to stop down and support the team.