Faulting Fans

The U.S. Open

When a tennis ball is hit out of bounds it’s called a fault. Out of bounds fan behavior has finally reached the
 esteemed US Open.

I’m not a tennis fan but I do know it’s got to be quiet during play. To the uninitiated it’s amusing to watch thousands of intent but silent people sit cheek by jowl moving their heads in unison. Left to right, right to left, left to right……

The sport is dignified – except maybe for John McEnroe back in the day – and respects time honored traditions. Tennis was one place where splashy self-centeredness was usually held at bay.

Everything a player sees and hears is important: crowd movement, conversation, flash photography and cell phones are banned to enable concentration. Players need to hear the sound of the ball coming off an opponent’s racket to help determine their return. Plus, the umpire’s rulings can’t be heard above chatter.

But even tennis has been affected by the societal coarseness that’s metastasized over the past forty years. It happened at the U.S. Open. According to Karen Crouse writing in The New York Times, “a women’s singles match was being played, but in a midlevel suite two men and two women, drinks in hand and backs to the court, carried on as if they were at a cocktail mixer.”

“On one point, their peals of laughter caused the server to catch her toss and the chair umpire to call for silence. The suite holders were so oblivious, they did not know the scolding was directed at them. The match ended, and they kept talking.”

“Last year, fans were shouting between serves” said Daniel E. Doyle, executive director of the Institute for International Sport at the University of Rhode Island. A “fan approached the offenders and told them to be quiet.” Peace was restored when an usher got involved. According to Doyle, “It was as if they were oblivious to the protocol. They were more important than the athletes who were on the court competing.” Doyle described the “disintegration of fan etiquette as “the biggest threat to sportsmanship.”

Sportsmanship used to teach kids to play fair, be courteous to other players, not to gloat in victory or be a sore loser. Professional athletes were expected to publicly embrace these concepts even if they were less than perfect in private life, while the fans generally emulated and promoted the sentiments. We’ve lost this informal social compact as intrusive, crude behavior became a normal part of spectator behavior.  It mirrors changes in society at large.

The decline of sportsmanship coincides with attacks against Christianity and its values. After all, what’s the essence of sportsmanship if it’s not “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?

Rampant offensiveness nourishes the moral relativism that brought us to this point. If we’re to restore civility - which we need in everyday life even more than in sports - we need a resurgence of Christianity. Is there anything else that can do it?

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