School Athletics and Fan Aggression

Abstract

Each American is generally expected to fully embrace with all his being all-American sports, and pitiful person who does not follow sports is often considered to have some kind of character defect. The possibility that there might be some kinds of social problems associated with sports first occurred to author when security police in charge of a sports arena requested lectures and presentations which might be useful in their attempts at crowd control. The security police were faced with a dilemma. They knew how, they said, to control youthful aggressors at games and other events, but incidence of such behavior was dramatically increasing. On other hand, police claimed that they were also confronted with a newer problem that caused some apprehension, and this was how they might handle little old ladies and grandmothers who became embroiled in fisticuffs in grandstands. Youthful antagonists could be physically broken apart, perhaps handcuffed, maced, and arrested; but few of young policemen felt that they would be comfortable trying to pin a 60-year-old, gray haired lady to floor in front of a cheering audience of 6000 fans. It was problems such as these, brought to author by various law enforcement officials, that originally stimulated analysis and exploratory inquiry reported in this paper. Scott (1972) has described two opposing ethics in athletics. The first, Lombardian ethic, is based upon such proclamations by Vince Lombardi as Winning isn't everything, it's only thing. The Lombardian ethic equates victory with preservation of manhood, and, by promoting a winning-is-theonly-thing philosophy, attitudes and behavior are sometimes transformed into the end justifies means. Many critics feel that Lombardian ethic appears to be rule of day from professional ranks down to colleges, high schools and junior high schools. Under this philosophy, opponent is enemy an obstacle in path of victory, causing some players to assert that almost have to despise your opponent or even hate him. Axthelm (1975) claims that Lombardi, Haldeman and other architects of victory have sold public a new attitude. Winning is only thing became a catch phrase, causing sports fans of nation to smirk, Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser. The antithesis of Lombardian

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