Behaving Badly

First it was the “You lie!” heard around the televised nation by Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina. Then Serena Williams let loose a volley of threats at an official during a U.S. Open match. Next up was the Kanye madness at the MTV Video Music awards.

And that was just what... one week?

What’s next?

If I had to guess, I’d say plenty.

Remember back in the day when “sportsmanlike” conduct was EXPECTED? Taken for granted … whether it was a Little League baseball game or a professional basketball game with a championship on the line?

John McEnroe used to be in a class all by himself when he ranted and raved during tennis matches. It was a thing to behold … watching a grown man act like a two-year-old. The same with former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight’s antics of flinging chairs and losing control during basketball games. He, too, was in a class by himself.

Since then, the offenses have been piling up. You can barely get through a week’s worth of news without hearing about an athlete getting fined for offensive behavior.

After this week’s worth of bad behavior, Serena Williams got fined the maximum penalty of $10,000. Rep. Wilson was officially admonished in a House resolution for his outburst during President Obama’s speech… and Kanye? Well, his penalty has amounted to publicly apologizing for boorishly stealing the spotlight from country singer Taylor Swift.

But I have a feeling those penalties are highly unlikely to put a stop to bad behavior — in any arena … sports, political or otherwise.

There’s that publicity thing. You know what I mean. “Any publicity is good publicity.” Or as, Oscar Wilde once put it: “There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is NOT being talked about.”

As long as these characters get plenty of media coverage, (yep, that includes me, I guess), there will be plenty of people behaving badly.

Leave your comments here or on our FaceBook page.

by Shari Scales Finnell