Unsportsmanlike Conduct?

Issue: Are you talking about the influx of penalties in the NFL?

Short Answer: I wish.

Reasoning: There is nothing more I hate than unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in the NFL, especially when it deals with celebrating.  The penalty can cost teams field position, points, and sometimes, games.  All this, because players want to make sure everyone out there knows it was ME, ME, ME that made that play.  I hate celebrations so much that I wish referees would flag players when they jump up and give the "first down" sign.  Hey, buddy, I watch football all the time, if you cross that imaginary line, I know it's a first down, I don't you need to tell me so.  Flag.  15 yards for being stupid.  Thanks.

Just two weeks ago in the Buffalo Bills Stevie Johnson caught a go-ahead touchdown against the New York Jets.  But, instead of being genuinely excited, he wanted to make sure everyone knew it was he who caught that touchdown.  So, he feigned shooting himself in the leg, a rather distasteful dig at Plaxico Burress.  Distasteful, but still, kind of funny.  But, Stevie wasn't done.  He then turned himself into an airplane, which flew a bit, and then crashed into the ground.  Maybe Stevie Johnson was absent the day they taught the rules at Buffalo Bills camp, but going to the ground in celebration is an automatic 15-yard penalty.  That meant the Bills had to kick off from the 20-yard line, which gave the Jets a short field.  Guess what?  The Jets drove, scored, and won.  Afterward, Johnson told reporters that he cost his team a chance to win.  Duh.  And it had nothing to do with a fumble or a dropped pass (although he did drop a potential game winner in the waning seconds of the game), it had to do with a selfish act that was blatantly against the rules.  Idiot.

I bring this up because, unless a player goes to the ground, there is some discretion involved in calling unsportsmanlike penalties.  There is a difference between "unsportsmanlike" and "raw human emotion".  Scoring a touchdown is an exciting moment, and when a player genuinely celebrates scoring, I have no problem with it at all.  When the Packers score and the players do the "Lambeau Leap", I love it.  That is true excitement for all, and it doesn't show-up the other team.  Occasionally the NFL gets the calls wrong, but they generally do a fantastic job at policing celebrations.  I can't say the same for Massachusetts high school football referees.  Wait.  What?  Massachusetts high school football has been more diligent in removing celebrations from their game.  They have a sportsmanship rule "that prohibits players from celebratory or taunting behavior while scoring a touchdown."  Fair enough.  I love it, in fact.  However, there has to be a line drawn somewhere.  You cannot expect a high school kid, who is breaking free to the end zone, in a state championship game, to not be excited about it.

Here is the scenario: Cathedral High School was trailing Blue Hills Regional Technical School 16-14 late in the fourth quarter of the Massachusetts 4A High School state championship game.  Cathedral quarterback Matthew Owens ran an option-keeper, which he broke for 56 yards and a touchdown.  He knew he was about to win a state championship, as he knew no one could catch him.  He raised his arm in celebration on the way into the end zone.  True, human emotion.  A ref threw a flag.  He invoked the "no celebration" rule, negated the touchdown, and, Cathedral ended up losing the game.  Cathedral's athletic director James Lynch summed it up perfectly: "I just give people the analogy: imagine a basketball player making a clutch three-pointer right at the end of the game, and he turns around and he just kind of shakes his fist in the air kind of thing...[a]nd it was simply just that and it was nothing else … I don’t think it was anything further than just excitement on the player’s behalf."  But, is there anyway we can make a decision about the egregiousness of the call without actually seeing it?  I'm glad you asked.  Cue the video!

One of the worst calls I have ever seen in my life, on one of the biggest stages.  This cost the team a state championship.  It will be almost impossible to overturn.  You can't now take away the championship from Blue Hills.  But, I would love to hear, from someone in a position of power in Massachusetts high school sports, that this was the wrong call, or at least a misinterpretation of the rule.  To top it all off, it seems as if the athletic director from Blue Hills, Ed Catabia, is a complete d-bag. When asked about the flag being thrown, Catabia responded that it was "a great call, the right call."  No.  It wasn't.  The fact that the call benefited your school with a cheap, tarnished state championship, doesn't make it the right call.  Dick.