Written by Several months back I wrote about how we as fans contribute to the culture of the game, and yet we find ourselves here again. It seems a few people did not listen. This first week and half of the NBA playoffs have seen a number of fans banned from NBA games. I personally thought that after the rough year we all faced that one of the biggest takeaways would be the importance of kindness. I also thought that we would be so grateful to be back in arenas cheering our teams on, that we would behave with more grace. I was wrong, but to be honest, I shouldn’t have been.
Banter and competition are crucial to the game, it makes it fun, but it has come to a point of fans physically harassing players. These are unacceptable behaviors. Why do we as humans think that we have the right to spit on players of an opposing team? Spitting on someone is one of the rudest things a human can do to another human, and a fan spit on an athlete because he played for the opposing team? When youth and kids witness these behaviors becoming the norm, what effect does that have on them as athletes in their own games? I recently saw a video of a young teenager hurling slurs at Cam Newton while Newton was taking time out of his practice to meet with fans. Newton was not required to do this, but did it out of kindness and was met with disrespectful comments from a young fan. We know how important fan engagement is with players and fans, but we must welcome that with grace and appreciation.
The NBA banning fans from games is a step in the right direction when it comes to protecting their athletes, but they can only do so much. Athletes often say they feel like zoo animals and fans are spectators that can do what ever they want to them with no repercussion. So I ask, how would you like it if someone watched you at work all day and loudly booed you in front of your co-workers just for doing your job? What if every mistake you made was met with being laughed at? Yes this is the job they signed up for, but we are all human and susceptible to the mental and emotional toll of being booed, or having popcorn thrown at them when they get injured. We need to be better.