The unwritten rules of sporting etiquette
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
By John Riordan
On Saturday I found myself having to explain to an American the fascination back home with Anton Ferdinand’s decision not to shake hands with John Terry and Ashley Cole before the QPR-Chelsea game.
As I rambled through an edited version of the context which shaped this sorry tale, the words started to sound more and more ridiculous.
America has its own issues, but west London’s bizarre clash of Fifa-mandated pre-game handshaking and dark-age racism allegations was more than my friend could handle. Ultimately, the televised charade which so many of us were glued to was the inevitable downside of this pointless task: making friends out of foes.
Football players do well all by themselves when an opponent is injured and the ball needs to go out of play. But there is a time for fairness and a time to know what your priorities are.
Shaking hands can wait until afterwards.
I’m not against contrived sporting etiquette — the really traditional stuff is the most fascinating. There’s nothing wrong, for example, with GAA guards of honour for All-Ireland champions in springtime. Even a sport like cycling, so riddled with dysfunction, can at least claim some moral redemption with the way it treats riders with mechanical problems.
Cricket is clearly the industry leader. The umpire didn’t spot your leg blocking the path of the ball on the way to the stumps? That’s ok, just walk anyway and give yourself the out.
Your opponent hits a double century? Applaud reverently. Tamper with the ball? Say goodbye to your career. When baseball emerged in the 19th century, it didn’t just inherit from cricket the basic tenets of run-building with bat and ball, it also retained that spirit of fair play and honour. Long before FIFA packaged their respect campaign in yellow, baseball’s wild side was offset by a conservative strand of gentlemanly conduct.
To this day, if a hitter dwells too long to admire his sweetly struck home run, he can expect retribution from the slighted pitcher.
There’s also an ancient eye-for-an-eye mentality when the star hitter of one team gets hit by an errant throw. Once that happens, his opposite number knows he’ll be the one who’ll have to suck up the pain when the opposing pitcher looks to even the score.
The footballers of the NFL might seem like a lawless shower but they too are governed by strict unwritten rules which are driven into them from a young age. One such tradition sparked a tense and interesting debate this past weekend. If you’ve ever noticed an NFL game fizzling out, it is because the team in the lead has possession and is fully within their rights to run the clock down. What transpires is the so-called “victory formation”: nobody tackles and nobody gets hurt. An understanding is reached. The game is over even if the clock states otherwise. The dying seconds tick away and the players shake hands.
But, occasionally, an over ambitious coach will test the limits of this. On Sunday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were in New Jersey taking on the Super Bowl champions, the New York Giants.
With time almost up, Tampa Bay, down by seven, were instructed by their new coach, Greg Schiano, to go for the ball by rushing the Giants defenders and hope that maybe the ball will spill out, a one in a million shot that isn’t without successful precedent. Inevitably, they failed to force a fumble and a heated argument among the surprised players spilled over into the coach’s handshake, both Schiano and Giants boss Tom Coughlin screaming blue murder at each other.
Schiano defended his actions by stating his team never gives up while Coughlin played the veteran’s card and patronised the rookie coach: “I don’t think you do that at this level. You don’t do that in this league … Thank goodness we didn’t get anyone hurt.”
“There’s nothing dirty about it,” fired back Schiano. “There’s nothing illegal about it. You know, we crowd the ball, and we try to knock it loose.
“At Rutgers, if you watched us, that’s what we did at the end of games. We’re not going to quit.”
The tense ending contrasted sharply with an altogether different sort of symbolic gesture which greeted the start of the game. The coin toss was won by Eric LeGrand, a former player of Schiano’s at Rutgers until he was paralysed by a tackle at that very stadium in his home state of New Jersey in 2010.
Schiano made headlines by signing his former player at Tampa Bay earlier this year — then LeGrand officially retired, having realised his dream of becoming a professional player. Schiano explained that he always promised every parent he would never give up on his players, their sons.
It was an unwritten contract, but he kept his word.
* john.w.riordan@gmail.com Twitter: JohnWRiordan
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