The End of Sportsmanship

No doubt, Chris Hansen's report in High School Nation about the threats endured by Tayler Hill and Gizelle Studevent was grim and disheartening. The report piles on to my own experience in covering girl's basketball, that the sport is not all sugar and spice that I'd naively thought - or hoped - it would be.

This very website is a daily reminder of that. Every day we receive message-board posts or emails gushing with jealousy and rage. Among the most persistently awful behaviors: and claims

• I am going to pump up my child/player by putting down another.
• The media (HoopGurlz) has a conspiracy against my school and is slanting coverage or rankings toward the arch-rival.
• Believe it or not, I'm oneo f the few who is totally objective about my own child / player /team and you totally missed the boat.
• Since you didn't see fit to rank my player / team higher, you don't know what you're talking about and all you want to do is hang around teenaged girls.

A lot of this comes from readers who view everything from the prism of college allegiance, a strong and sometimes blinding perspective. Most of it comes from the most powerful filter I think I've ever encountered - that of a parent's.

This latest round of atrocious behavior comes from a place - racial and class differences - that is pretty scary. Though not excusable, the previously mentioned blind spots are at least understandable. It's the fanaticism, of course, that makes the fan.

It is disappointing to learn after all these years, with a woman and a man of color currently mounting serious runs at the U.S. Presidency, that, in some cases, it's also racism that makes the fan.