5 dumbest sports controversies of 2015

3. Connor Cook is rude

The Connor Cook Big Ten Championship Game controversy was a microcosm of all the worst part of sports fandom. In case you don’t remember, Cook found himself in the crosshairs of fragile football fans everywhere when he didn’t give a good enough handshake to college football legend Archie Griffin. Cook had just led his Michigan State Spartans on an epic downfield march to knock off the then-undefeated Iowa Hawkeyes, and in the excitement of the moment he let his etiquette slip a bit. No biggie, right?

Ha! People, especially the perpetually aggrieved denizens of Twitter, love nothing more than taking one person’s small, innocent mistake and blowing it out of proportion, and that’s exactly what happened with Cook’s gaffe. All reason went out the window. People called him classless, entitled, spoiled, arrogant. The entirety of his personality — who he is, how he treats others, etc. — was called into question because he whiffed on giving a firm, respectful handshake. That’s all he did. That was his crime. It was a small error in decorum, an understandable and forgivable slip-up. But to let the screeching pearl-clutching masses of Twitter tell it, Cook essentially sucker punched Archie Griffin, spit on his unconscious body, and set an American flag on fire.

Cook defused the situation, apologizing for his mistake, and for the most part people moved on — because if there’s one thing about social media controversies, it’s that there’s always a fresh one around the corner — but that doesn’t change how ridiculous the initial controversy was. Living in a world where people delight in the comprehensive and inflexible judgment of a complete stranger is tiring, isn’t it?

Next: 2. Whenever an athlete speaks out