I enjoy watching football. Despite all the things I hear in this day and age about the irreversible damage to players’ minds and bodies, I am able to push that from my mind and watch hoping that everyone stays healthy and safe, and just enjoy one of my favorite pastimes. But this weekend, while watching an NFL game draw to a close, I saw something that disgusted, disappointed and confused me. And it wasn’t the actions of a player, a coach or even a ref this time; it was an entire stadium of “fans”, a home crowd coming together to cheer for the same thing, which is usually something that gives me chills and makes me love sport all the more. Sadly though, this cheering was unprecedented, unwarranted, unethical and just downright despicable.
The Kansas City Chiefs played the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, and in the fourth quarter of the game Kansas City’s starting Quarterback, Matt Cassle, went down with a head injury after a huge hit. As he lay on the field, medical personnel surrounding him after what was very clearly a serious injury to the home team‘s QB, the fans started cheering!
I have over the years seen a home crowd cheering for an opposing team player injury, and when that happens I shake my head, pray for the safety of the player on the field and wish that fans wouldn’t be so senseless, so classless. This is a game, and that guy lying injured on the field is a person, with a family who cares about him who is watching – probably in that crowd – and he could be facing a life threatening or career ending injury. At that point team loyalties should fly out the window and your human compassion should come into play, no exceptions. On the flip side of that, when I see a home crowd cheer for an opponent’s player when they are able to get up and walk off the field after an injury, or when its confirmed that they are at least conscious and going to be ok, my heart swells for American sports, the love of the game, the good things that come from athletics, team sports and sportsmanship.
But in my more than 15 years of watching and participating in organized sports, I have never seen a home crowd cheer for an injury to one of their own. I was completely blown away with the idiocy behind it. You want to boo a player for making a mistake, by all means. Chant his backup’s name when he makes another error, be my guest. But to see a player on your own team down on the field with a clear head injury, in an era of football where the massive brain damage to long time players is well documented and heavily debated, and to actually cheer for his plight rather than pray that he, as a human being, is going to be ok, is absolutely shameful, disgusting, immoral, senseless and completely classless.
I don’t know anyone from Kansas City, but I hope this and any other media outlet covering the topic reaches at least one Chiefs fan who was at that game and participated in showing an utter lack of humanity. I hope it makes them really think about what they’re doing when they watch a sport or a game or a competition of any sort, and to really consider the people in those uniforms and the fact that their sole life purpose isn’t to please fans on the football field, it is to provide for their family, to provide entertainment, to do it in as healthy and safe and elite a manner as possible. I hope I never see something like that again, in any sport, under any circumstance. Class it up America.
RyanWritesDaily 