It should have happened long ago. Today the NFL announced that they would clamp down on Taunting. It's been going on far too long, and has, in some minds, especially young athletes, a part of the game as they see their favorite football players taunting opponents. Taunting is not cool. It is not manly. It is dishonorable, It is childish. It adds nothing to the game unless you are the kind of knuckle head fan who likes to see stupidity. It is not strategic and it provides the taunter with no advantage, except the enmity of the tauntee. It is not gamesmanship. It is small mindedness.. Taunting is a form of bullying. Those of you in the NFL who taunt, consider the example you are setting for the youngster playing football.
It should have happened long ago. Today the NBA rules committee announced that in the upcoming season the league would pay greater attention to players on offense drawing fouls, the example they gave was of a player dribble up the court with a defensive player behind him. The player with the ball suddenly stops and the player behind him has no place to go except run into him. Foul against the defense? No longer. It will be called from now on as a no-call (get on with the game) or a foul on the player dribbling who stopped. No longer will offense be able to leap into a defender and get a guaranteed foul and freethrows. A no-call or a charging foul on the offense. Players who try to get this kind of advantage are to put it mildly sneaks.
In both cases, the acts have something to do with a player's attitude to winning. If winning is one's only goal, then any advantage one can gain seems worth doing.
Here's a small poem by William Makepeace Thackery
Who misses or who wins the prize
Go lose or conquer as you can:
But if you fall, or if you rise,
Be each, pray God, a gentleman.
