COLUMN: Referee problems lead to poor understanding of sportsmanship

After this week’s Monday Night Football game in Seattle, much attention was brought to the inconsistencies of the replacement referees, who were hired at the start of the season following the dispute between the regular NFL refs, the owners and commissioner, Rodger Goodell. Yesterday morning, the NFL leadership crumbled under the enormous pressure.

 

Since the start of the season, the replacements have had a rough time making correct calls, enforcing game rules and keeping up with the pace of the game. It wasn’t until late Monday night after a game-altering call in Seattle that players, fans, coaches and staff began tweeting and using social media as an outlet for their outrage. 

 

TJ Lang, an offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers, had this to say regarding his team’s loss: “Got (expletive) by the refs.. Embarrassing. Thanks nfl.” Within hours, Lang had 90,000 new Twitter followers.

 

Although players and fans have a right to be outraged, I have to wonder: Was it really all that bad? Don’t the refs officiate for both teams?

 

Adversity is something we seldom expect to have to handle, especially in the case of our youth, who are over-coddled and over-entitled without being instigated. We all remember that kid who thought the last pitch was a ball instead of a strike or who went into the locker room complaining or crying about the refs. Maybe it made it easier to blame a failure on something that wasn’t within their control. It makes losing more tolerable.

 

It makes me sick to see the examples of sportsmanship like Lang, Aaron Rodgers or anyone else in the league complain and whine about his adversity.

 

Mr. Lang, you earn millions of dollars by putting on a helmet and using your large body to stop opponents from hitting your teammate. While your career revolves around a piece of leather, I think it would be smart of you to spend more time working on your fundamentals and less time using your deplorable grammar to make people feel sorry for you online. Your quarterback was sacked eight times, and you, sir, played undoubtedly one of the worst games of your career. 

 

So whether it be your attitude or your performance, you better tighten it up. There are kids watching.

 

— Benjamin Fuller is a senior economics major and a weekly columnist for The Mirror.