f13.net

I heard about this story recently as I taught for a shot period of time at this school.  The reason I post this is that I'm left wondering if it will have a nationwide effect on this type of post-game celebration. 


READ HERE (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2005-10-22-goalpost-death_x.htm?csp=34)

I'd appreciate it if you could refrain from tasteless jokes and one-liners. 

I never understood why schools allowed that kind of celebration anyway. Surely that kind of thing costs money in repairs.

Also:


In Useless News? Did you wake up on the wrong side of reality this morning?

It's your sandbox.  You tell me where I should have posted it.

I should have put that in green. My snarkiness got the better of me.

Did the school allow this sort of thing when you taught there? I know my high school principal would have shit a brick had we tried to pull down a goalpost after a victory. Not that there were many victories, mind you.

It isn't so much that these celebrations are allowed; more that they aren't rendered impossible by adequate security. A few well aimed doses of pepper spray would have kept those goalposts up.

I know they weren't allowed... but for reasons other than safety.  Last I knew, it cost like $15k to replace goalposts (at least at the Division 1 level).  Smaller schools try to discourage this for financial reasons. The bigger schools with TV contracts don't care much.

The reason for my request was that while I was there, I was asked to be a positional coach of the football team and I also played basketball with many of the players. I felt connected to some of the athletes there as I was an athlete in college myself.  Seeing a 20 year old lose their life senselessly also bums me out.

Hard for me to get worked up over the student.  Hanging around a crowd looking to topple large objects is not a good idea, regardless of where you are.  I know my college had people bringing in electric circular saws (!!!) to help tear the thing down, and there were people climbing up onto it and up the poles (!!!).  Not to mention everyone standing around the base.  Which is where the posts land.  I can't believe there wasn't serious injury, and I'm sorry this kid drew the short stick.

There should, however, be some fury directed at administrations that let this sort of thing go on.  Not that there shouldn't be post game celebrations, but stop tearing up public property and citizenry to do it.

Thus why I sometimes can't help but wonder how the fuck people get so goddamned worked up over this shit.

If I pull off a really, really impressive win in a game, I don't smash a window in celebration.  Who the fuck started this, "I'm happy, LET'S SMASH SHIT!" tradition?

In most cases it's the drunken fans, not the actual athletes, who smash stuff up, right?  Emphasis on the "drunken" part.

  I'm pretty sure it started at University of Maryland, after an upset win against duke, then a year later after a upset loss, a year later it was just because we played duke. That last year the riot squad was out in force with those damn paint-gun-pepper-spray pellets. That shit hurts when the pellets don’t break. :-o Anyway the second or third year it got coverage on The Daily Show and I think it only spread from then on.
  As for why, as a participant in all three riots, I have to say it was fun ass hell. And I don't even like sports. I don’t think it would have really been a problem if it were just up to the school; they spent way more than the cost of a goalpost on school spirit anyways. But the local neighborhood wasn’t happy about it. Interestingly enough, for a town called "College Park", almost half of the residents didn't see why the school even needed to exist in the first place, much less why it had to be in their neighborhood.

Smashing shit is fun for drunk people.  Some fellow alcoholics I knew had a bottle range set up in the basement, with plastic sheeting to stop flying fragments, where we would throw bottles against the concrete wall.  Then we would laugh and drink more.  Like so many other drunken notions, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Sports Riots: Making Prohibition Seem Like A Not-So-Bad Idea

Real nice. This is when I pray for karma to be real.

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Nope gotta go back just a tad farther...

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