Arizona Wildcats fans riot; lessons to be learned

Sports can be a truly powerful tool.

It can provide great joy and teach us about heartbreak long before our first crush. It can provide a connection between people regardless of socioeconomic divides and be a common language among those of differing culture.

What it never is, is an excuse for violence of any level from Three Stooges to Taken.

On Saturday in Tucson, Arizona a handful of people decided to hide behind the fact that a 19 year old kid couldn’t put a ball through a metal cylinder with nylon attached before a clock ran out as an excuse to act out something deep inside of them. A college basketball game became a guise to commit acts of debauchery and violence.

Really?

In some parts of the world, like Ukraine, these acts are used as a way to stand up against an oppressive government or to protect individual human rights. In America, we act out because of a lost sporting event?

Let’s be honest, if you’re inciting acts of violence and taking on police in riot gear on the street in the name of a team, you aren’t a sports fan, you’re a menace. A menace wearing the same colors and likely with too much alcohol in your system. You’re someone looking for an excuse for violence that serves no greater purpose.

In the ancient world when Greece held the original Olympics, countries would stop wars to come together and compete in the games in what was know as an Olympic Truce. They put aside differences because of sports. Fast forward almost 3000 years and some college students are attacking those assigned to protect them in the name of athletics.

Maybe we haven’t come as far as we thought. Maybe some people need to either learn the true spirit of competition or stop pretending to be sports fans and spend that free time have in an anger management class.