The USI Men’s Basketball team hosted Shorter University in a nail biting overtime victory over the Hawks ealier this month.
The game was a tossup for the majority where Shorter would take the lead, then USI. With tensions rising as the game became more intense, players started getting verbal. Both of the teams players started talking ‘smack’ and the heated competition became a game of words in-between plays.
Of course words get tossed around in any competitive atmosphere whether its pickup games at the Recreation Center or a sanctioned NCAA match at the PAC, but does this take away from the actual game itself? Some think that the added entertainment gives the game a more exciting appeal while others feel that it gives the school and the team a bad look.
John Gerbig, a fan of USI athletics who attended the game, said “I definitely think smack talk makes it a more interesting game. I like seeing the fire in new transfers and since I like to go to the games and give the referees an ear full, it helps me get more hype.”
John has been a loyal fan to the Screaming Eagles in his fourth year at USI, but not all USI students feel the same. Some people feel like it can be portrayed as a negative outlook on us to the visitors of the university. Many people come to these basketball games but not all of them are cheering for USI. Of course the most of us surround ourselves with Eagle fans, so we do not always realize there is a visiting crowd, especially when we play a school from Rome, Georgia and their fan base is minimal. If it appears that USI instigated the fight, that negatively reflects us as a student body.
Moriah McFarland, a junior at USI, said, “When the players talk smack on the court, they’re making themselves and the university look bad. Especially the students who don’t attend very many games, like myself, and I don’t want to be viewed in a negative way by people who are visiting the campus just because they see something negative about it.”
Smack talk goes on constantly in sports so it obviously does not ruin an event by any means. In fact, some of the greatest rivalry matches have been promoted by one side verbally offending the other. The Great Mohammad Ali said, “Clumsy, ugly, flat-footed Joe Frazier the heavy weight champion of the world? I’ll show you what a real champion is…” this was said before one of the greatest boxing matches in history. All this statement did was hype up the fight. Ali talked trash before, during, and after every single fight win or lose and he is still, respectively, one of the best boxers to ever live. But there is a line that, when crossed, can embarrass and taint an event or even an organization.
Now, when Ali was running his mouth, he was respected because he produced an amazing performance. The USI men’s team struggled against the team they were facing. And since we were not on the court with them, we cannot say what was said or know who started the whole ordeal, but the trash talking that was going on may not have been justified. When a team is elite, they do not need to talk trash, at least not to the point where the crowd can see. Imagine this, USI’s premier player is at the free throw line and the guy in the box nearest to him starts talking trash. He silently looks at the guy, right in his eye, then turns back to the hoop and hits both shots. That action alone, if seen by the crowd, would, and should, fire them up twice as much compared to a whole lot of verbal altercation that the fans cannot even hear to satisfy that need for energy.
Either way, Trash talking can fire up a crowd or disappoint the fans. I believe USI was in the clear here because they were just retaliating to a defeated Shorter Hawks team. But what can come back to bite you is that the referee sees the retaliation nine times out of 10 instead of the initial foul and that is what has the potential to hurt us in the long run.