A Terrible Display of Sportsmanship

Being in the Marching Band, I go to every game to support the Riverside Fighting Panther Football team and preform at the halftime show. And this Friday’s match with the New Brighton Lions, which would decide if we had a spot in the playoffs, has shown the lack of respect humans can have for each other.

Fourth Quarter, 7 minutes left (or 5, I can’t remember). Teams are tied 21-21. Jordan Matiko is hit hard. What seemed like a minor injury turned out to be ten grueling long minutes of silence as the ambulance came on the field with a stretcher to transport Matiko to the hospital. His fate is still unknown to me. During the entire time, the New Brighton “Fans” and Football players shouted curses and told us to “Hurry up”. As if the game was life or death for them. Matiko was not only one of our best players, but he was also a senior and this was, after all, Senior Night.

But, wait, there’s more.

A couple minutes later, another player from our team (the name is unknown) broke his leg and we had another five minutes (it felt like 5 hours) of silence as they evacuated him from the field. and, of course, the “Fans” are yelling curses and quite literally “Tooting their horn”.

After Matiko’s accident, we had one flag against us for “Unsportsman-like Actions” (Which I can’t blame whoever did it).

The game went into Overtime and we lost, 34-28.

I appreciate if you read this rant, and sorry for doing so.
It just seems like you guys actually listen to me.

I’ve played sports all my life and never seen this happen. That’s pretty crappy.

I play football, and have seen some unsportsmanlike action, even on the freshman team :stuck_out_tongue: But nothing as bad as this, just remember football and other sports are very heated and competitive.

I quit football. The things people said about others and especially about girls disgusted me.

That’s basically my team there :stuck_out_tongue: I always try to ignore all that and just have fun in the sport.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this happen in the rugby league in Australia. Everytime someone gets seriously injured players from both teams rush over to make sure the guy’s okay and the crowd all cheers when the guy is carried off and gives a thumbs up to let them know he’s okay.

Yuki

My son plays fifth grade tackle football. At an away game, the home CROWD (read: parents of the ten year old players), booed when one of our guys ripped off a forty yard run. The refs in this league don’t travel. That means they’re local and probably know people in the crowd. At any rate, flags flew immediately and the crowd was penalized. I was pleased to see the refs maintain zero tolerance for that crap.

this is why my mom does not let me brother play football there are always haters and you get too many injuries! :smiley:

I’ve gotten a pretty badly sprained wrist lol.