Endzone Celebrations

This is a big topic the last year or two in the NFL. It all started with the infamous Sharpie incident, became inflamed some more with a cell-phone incident, and is once again raging this year after some players started imitating other players.

Now I read a lot of NFL commentary. Every day I check USAToday and Yahoo. On Yahoo they link to editorials from all sorts of writers like Peter King of Sports Illustrated to Chris Carter. I read Jarrett Bell and the countless other NFL writers who host weekly chats on USAToday's website. The overwhelming consensus that these writers have groupthinked themselves into is that endzone celebrations are okay as long as they aren't using props. I think I read that in three separate places just this morning.

Why is this where we've chosen to draw the line? T.O. imitating (read: mocking) Ray Lewis' dance after scoring a TD is okay, but whipping out a marker to sign an autograph is not? Because there's a prop.

This is stupid logic, and a clear-cut case in point of a groupthink. Read between the lines and you will find that most of these writers favor this logic because they feel the props are proof of premeditation, whereas non-prop celebrations are apparently proof of spontenaity. But that's not right. Are you telling me Owens didn't have any idea he would ape Lewis until he crossed the goal line and thought of it? Are you telling me Hines Ward had no idea he would mock the Eagles' wing-flapping celebration until he crossed the goal line?

Clearly, in both cases above, premeditation existed, as much as it did with Horn's cell phone and Owens' Sharpie. So we can rule out premeditation as the thing that makes celebrating bad. After all, the spontaneous celebration is a leap into the stands or simply slamming the ball and raising your arms in triumph.

In truth, the Owens' dance mocking Ray Lewis is much more disrespectful to another person than it was when he pulled out a sharpie and signed a football. Same goes for Ward's wing-flap being far more disrespectful to a person or team than Horn calling his mother to tell her he scored. So why are these writers so bent on saying "No props."

And why did the league ban team celebrations, removing my favorite aspect of the sport since childhood--choreographed dances. Who do those things hurt? There aren't any props in there. No one's even mocking another person's dance...they're just performing a glorified secret high-five or handshake, right?

So maybe celebrations are bad for another reason...like unsportsmanlike conduct. Clearly all the cases mentioned in this post are disrespectful to another team or player, and maybe that's why they are bad. But the very definition of unsportsmanlike conduct...the true reason it's mentioned and invoked (and why some instances of it result in a penalty) is at the end of the day because kids are watching the sport. Truthfully, that's what "unsportsmanlike behavior" is about...it's about being role models for kids. But if you ask someone like T.O. about it, he would say he doesn't want to be a role model, and doesn't feel he should have to be. And if being unsportsmanlike were the real reason some celebrations were banned, then they'd all be banned, wouldn't they? The leaping into the stands, spiking the ball, dancing, they're all going to rub it in the faces of the opponent....so why allow any celebration. Why not make it a rule that the guy scoring a touchdown must act just as Marvin Harrison does, simply dropping the ball and returning to the sideline like it was all very routine?

I'm getting sarcastic now. Because the fans love celebrations. The Icky Shuffle? Come on, man, you smiled at that when you were a kid just like I did. I hate Terrell Owens, but I still laughed like a girl when he did Ray Lewis' dance. I think he's a horrible role model and needs a good swift kick to the nuts, but that dance was still funny.

Sports are about emotions...about passion and guts and glory. If every player simply dropped the ball and ran back to the bench it would be boring. We want our athlete heroes to want to win. When I see Peyton Manning make a great play and pump his fist in celebration, it makes me more excited. When you see Brett Favre make an impossible throw and later leap into the arms of the receiver who caught it....that makes you more excited. We don't want them to be boring.

I think the only celebration that should be banned is one where the scorer punches the other team's player in the face. Or the one where the TD catcher pulls out a gun and shoots the opposition dead like Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition. Or the one where the scoring player drops his pants on the 50 yard line and deficates on the opposing team's logo. We should also, it goes without saying, ban any celebration that ends in nudity. But beyond that....why draw ridiculous lines at "group celebrations" or "use of props." Because that's just silly journalistic groupthink. There's nothing wrong with a group dance or a sharpie signing. It's just expression. I may not like a particular celebration, and I may not like the in-your-faceness of some premeditation, but overall, I want passion and exuberance in my players. I want screams of joy and helmet throws of dejection. I want pumped fists, number ones in the air, and shouts of "Yes!" audible in the telecast. I want hugs and players hoisted in the air.

To ban any celebration (besides those breaking television standards and practices rules or hurting another player) is to take a giant step toward the sterilization of sport. After all, what is rememberd more, the individual goals scored during the Mircale on Ice, or the fact that all the team USA players got on the podium at once?

Maybe I'm alone here, but regardless of how you feel about celebrations...you have to admit that drawing the line at props or group activities is just arbitrary and silly.