by motherscratcher » Fri Dec 30, 2011 11:45 am
[quote:b0eb76220b="nexrad"]
Last year my son was running in the USCAA (small-college) national championships in New Hampshire. Along the way, he stumbled and fell, injuring himself. [b:b0eb76220b]Two "good samaritan" runners from other schools stopped to help him up and walked with him for about 400 meters before continuing on. [/b:b0eb76220b]It's good there are coaches and runners out there that place a higher value on compassion, kindness and the true meaning of sportsmanship than winning at all costs.[/quote:b0eb76220b]
That's great that they did that. I have a feeling that good sportsmanship far outweighs bad sportsmanship across the board. Of course, we don't often hear about the good variety.
Do you honestly think that, in the same situation, those runners would have acted differently based on what the back of one of their Tee shirts said?
I wrestled (very averagely) in high school. We, as well as other teams, had a lot of different shirts with all manner of tough guy slogans. Some clever, most not, all probably a little goofy or over-the-top to outside observers. It didn't change our nature, or our upbringing, or our preclusion to common decency and sportsmanship.
Do we really think that these kids are going to put on a shirt with a goofy little slogan and then just hop over a dead kid laying in their path and continue running? Or push down a slower kid in front them because of some new adopted slogan that is essentially the same thing as the "Lead, Follow, or Get Out Of The Way" shirts we've seen for the last 2 decades?
If kids actually do those things on a CC course I propose there are a lot more problems with them than some tee shirt slogan.
And talking of firing a guy over it? In 2011 with a crappy economy and unemployment at a pretty high level? I can't believe how casually we sit back on our computers and cheer for the elimination of another person's job, as if that's some small thing.
If the slogan is really that bad, isn't it more reasonable for the athletic director to say "Hey, we don't like those shirts. We think They're inappropriate. Lose 'em please."?
When did everyone turn into Francis from Stripes?