Brawls in Basketball - An unwelcome trend on its rise
Professional sports can get very competitive and because of this sometimes fights can break out among players. Brawling is a common occurrence in ice hockey and it does happen in many different sports as well. Brawls have also started to become more and more frequent in basketball. There are a lot of reasons for this increasing phenomenon and governing bodies and athletes have a lot of work in front of them to get back to a friendly and peaceful game. Hopefully in the next few years basketball will once again become a pleasurable and competitive game that it has been.
Brawling is when several members of a sports team start fighting, either with the other team or amongst themselves. No one is quite sure when the first brawl in a game of basketball took place but thankfully they are not as frequent as in other sports like ice hockey. A lot of examples can be found in basketball though and the most recent incident took place during a match between China’s basketball team and the Brazilian basketball team.
During a recent friendly basketball match, if it can be called friendly, the players of the Chinese team and some players of the Brazilian team got into a serious altercation that led to the match being called off. The match that was taking place started to get a bit rough and a foul was called against a Chinese player that was not well received. The coach of the Chinese team, Bob Donewald, got very upset and protested to the referee. The match got even rougher after that point and a fight broke out involving several of the players on both teams. The Brazilians then left the court and were even attacked on the way to their locker room. The fourth game in the series was cancelled when the Brazilian team refused to play in the upcoming match. The Chinese Basketball Association apologised for the behaviour of the players on behalf of the Chinese team and has decided to review the footage of the match and hand out harsh punishment to players involved.
All sports are very competitive and at the end of the day all the players are out on the field or court to win the match. But sometimes the desire to win can overtake the desire to play the game properly and fights and unsportsmanlike conduct can occur. This is especially true in full contact sports but the strange thing is that in a game like rugby, fights and brawls are rare. The one sport which has the highest incidents of fighting is ice hockey, maybe because it was never stopped initially when it first occurred but the governing body of the sport has really clamped down on it now. Basketball is a very physical game and there is a lot of pushing and shoving that takes place. In that sort of a heated environment fights do take place.
Fighting in sports is never acceptable; it ruins the atmosphere of the game going on and sets a very bad example for the people watching, especially children. Young people see athletes and particularly basketball players, who are celebrities these days, as role models. These youngsters will want to emulate their role models and their behaviour in their own lives. Children who see their favourite athletes fighting will think it is ok for them to fight as well.
Basketball players should be given special training courses on how to deal with anger on the court and also they should be given lessons in sportsmanlike conduct on and off the court. What players and teams do not remember is that a friendly match is exactly that, a friendly match; a match that is played simply for fun and has no competitive reward at the end of it. The Chinese and Brazilian players forgot the meaning of the word friendly and they probably have to be reminded of it soon. It may take a few years but with some hard work, brawling can be eliminated from the phenomenal game of basketball.
Tags: