Welcome to the inaugural edition of the goodfans blog!
Last month, in the town of Westborough MA, a hockey dad was charged with kicking and punching a 10-year-old hockey player after a game. READ STORY
Although the police are having trouble finding witnesses to the alleged attack, unfortunate incidents like this seem to have become almost commonplace in our sports culture today. For many of us, each new story often reminds us of similar occurrences we’ve read or heard about, or perhaps even observed first-hand in the past.
More importantly however, these incidents also provide each of us with an opportunity to stop, reflect, and ultimately take responsibility for who “we” are as sports fans:
As individuals…
- If caught up in the “heat of the moment” out of frustration or anger, or in an attempt to support our child, are we capable of similar violent acts? If so, what can we do about it before something happens?
- If, in the future, we are a witness to a similar assault on a player, coach, referee or fan, what would we do?
As community members…
- How can we work together to forge a plan for preventing similar incidents from happening at future sporting events?
Although not always simple, the answers to these questions can go a long way toward helping to preserve a safe and fun sports culture for our future generations.
We invite your thoughts and comments.
April 8, 2007 at 7:16 pm
This is a wonderful organization which is a great step towards safer and more enjoyable sports. As an amateur athlete myself, while playing a game, it is frustrating to have disrespectful fans yell from the sidelines. I think that this organization can help get the message across to all those bad fans, that the way they are acting is not appropriate and can affect the players. Keep up the good work good fans!
April 10, 2007 at 1:03 pm
This website is a great idea!! But problems at ballparks, stadiums, arenas, etc are not a new problem. I went to many Red Sox games in the 70s and sat in the bleachers most of the time ($2 then for a seat that costs $25 now!!!!!!) and watched many brawls in those days. The brawls were doubly bad whenever the Yankees were in town. It’s too easy to say that times were better back in the day when in fact they were just as bad.
My job took me a way from Boston in 1980 and I have loyally followed the Red Sox from afar. I’ve lived in Columbus, Ohio, Chicago and now the Houston, Tx area and I have had great experiences in the old Municipal Stadium in Cleveland, Old Tiger Stadium, Comiskey Park, Miller Park in Milwaukee, Minute Maid Park and The Ballpark in Arlington. Wrigley Field, like Fenway, is a shrine, but fan behaviour at all of these parks was far better then what I have experienced at Fenway the last few times I’ve been in Boston in the summer. Fans in the Midwest and here in Texas are far more laid back and courteous and maybe, because their tickets prices are not as ridiculous as Fenway and are much easier to get, they don’t feel the need to vent or rage or brawl when they attend a game. Don’t get me wrong, there still no experience quite like the Fenway experience. I’m just disgusted a small portion of our younger Sox fans, some of the under 30 crowd, who feel that drunkeness and brawling at Fenway, is their right!
Mike Pinciaro
The Woodlands, Texas
April 10, 2007 at 2:05 pm
This is the most pathetic attempt at making money i have ever seen. If you don’t like the atmosphere at the ball park then go to the circus. I can’t wait to see people wearing these shirts!
April 10, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Kudos to the start up of a great website. I have to agree that the under 40 and MAYBE 30 crowd can ruin a great sporting event by thinking that the only way to enjoy a sporting event is to get totally trashed and harass the fans around them or start brawls in the stands and elsewhere within and outside the sporting venue; and also yelling for an altercation between the players. I think we are all guilty of yelling some sort of comment at an official at some game or another, but when it becomes abusive and you have small kids around, that’s where it gets ugly. I come from a small family of youth/ highschool/college hockey players (strictly the males in our small clan) and I enjoyed watching my brother play during youth hockey, high school and college days and listening to the stories about hockey as told by my uncle about my cousins and their hockey playing days and the ’shenanigans’ of mens hockey played during those ‘late night hours’. I also enjoyed the occasional Bruins games back in the 80s and 90s when I could afford to purchase tickets and still do enjoy going to an occasional Bruins game. I remember one game in particular back in the 90s, when the Quebec Nordiques and the Hartford Whalers were teams to be reckoned with. I had taken my dad to a playoff game against one of the above-mentioned teams (unfortunately my memory of which team it was escapes me right now). Here we are, a father and daugher enjoying an upbeat adrenaline-filled exciting hockey game at the old BOSTON GARDEN, and behind us are sitting these chuckleheads who keep screaming for a fight and generally dropping the f-bomb and other obscenities. Instead of enjoying an exciting and skillfully played hockey game, these morons were there only to see bloodshed. If memory serves me correctly, there were no fights or scrums on the ice in that game. Anyway, by the 3rd period, my dad has had enough and wants to turn around and say something to these idiots. I told him to just sit tight, they’ll move up to the standing area along the back wall for the 3rd period. They did and my dad and I were able to enjoy the rest of the game without listening to the rantings and ravings about how these pinheads wanted to see fists flying and blood shed. I am also a Patriots fan and a Red Sox fan, but enjoy watching those games from the comfort of my home. I can do without the hullabaloo and having to look over my shoulder to make sure a beer, coke or punch isn’t inadvertenly flying in our direction because some irate fan is acting like a moron.
April 10, 2007 at 12:48 pm
It’s about time. I have not been to Fenway since the day I took my young boys and they had to listen to an obnoxious drunk behind us using words lik M—– f—–. Since they serve drink at these events why not hire bouncers just like they do do in bars.
April 10, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I, as many others, read about your company in the Globe and wanted to comment. Since this is a for-profit business, I have no idea whether or not you will allow posts with a dissenting view, but blogs are supposed to inspire and facilitate dialogue even if it disagrees with the blog owner, so here it goes.
First, I totally applaud what you’re doing as far as youth and high school sports are concerned. Although stories of parents beating up 10 year olds and fights breaking out at youth soccer games are incredibly isolated and part of a sensationalist angle from the corporate media, there is absolutely no place for profanity and inexcusable behavior from fans below the collegiate level.
What I take issue with, however is the “fan police” state I’ve witnessed over the last decade in the pro sports venues, specifically the Garden and most especially, Fenway Park where it has increased exponentially over the years. There has been dramatic sensitivity increase of stadium security in both venues toward what would be considered “spirited rowdiness” during previous years.
Please keep in mind I’m not referring to, nor am I defending drunk obnoxious fans, fights in the grandstands, shouting profanity so the entire section can hear, or anything like that. I’m talking about a collective sense of a police state where Red Sox fans are asked to turn anti-Yankees shirts inside-out (after all, the word “sucks” can be heard on prime-time television), fans in Foxboro being asked to put their shirts back on during the winter (so much for spelling out your team’s name with a bunch of guys – perhaps we’re worried those idiots will catch a cold?), and non-profane heckling of Yankee players (I’ve seen someone get thrown out for getting on Sheffield when he missed a cut-off man).
Each time I go to Fenway, I’m constantly worried about yelling at Damon above a speaking tone, watching normally behaved fans getting escorted out of Fenway by packs of police as if they just robbed a 7-11, or whether or not I should collectively booing the umpire may cost me my friends and I our season tickets. There is a constant big-brother feeling these days, and while many of the fans getting thrown out rightly deserve it, yelling at Jeter about his hair cut shouldn’t be the bar by which an adult who paid over $100 to be there gets the boot. Disruptive behavior should be dealt with, but a “who will save the children” outlook might be better for schools and playgrounds, not at pro sporting events.
When I went to any of the Boston venues as a kid growing up in Maine, I used to love the excitement, and yes, the rowdiness and the heckling of the opposing team for which Boston fans are famous. I truly believe that atmosphere gives our venues character, passion and a home field advantage unlike any other. The welcoming graphic on your home page paints a really goofy, after-school-special type of smiling friendly environment that might be great for Church suppers and Disney on Ice, but when I go to Fenway I want it to be loud, passionate and brutal for the opposing team. Imagine, wearing one of your t-shirts – with the type of theme drafted from the philosophy of the movie Pleasantville – would get in the grandstands at Fenway during a playoff game.
The old Boston Garden used to have a blue collar, loud, cheer-through-the-national-anthem feel that was totally irreplaceable and one of the most exciting venues in all of sports to catch a hockey game. Now it’s a quiet, cushy, Sunday stroll with the family kind of environment that makes me want to go a sports bar instead, where people might actually get fired up about the game (admittedly this has much to do with the fact that the average Joe has been priced right out of the games).
Kids love that environment too, and catching an occasional curse word won’t put them into years of regressive therapy as an adult. That’s what parents are for, to explain right from wrong behavior. After all, some of the best sporting events I’ve been to have been the Roger Clemens and Johnny Damon welcome back games, and the kids I saw had a blast. They generally learn social behavior a lot more reliably from their parents, than they do the 21 year old drunk BU student two sections over.
Again, youth and high school sports are totally different – but when you’re taking your kids to a Yankees/Sox game, the smell of the rivalry, the bitterness of the Boston fans, and the heckling of the Yankee players should not only be expected, it should add to an electric, sometimes comical environment. You’ve failed as a parent if you have brought your children to the game expecting a 1950’s sitcom type of environment.
So while I certainly agree with some of your premise, it would be have been a lot more meaningful had your energy and marketing been geared more toward the fact that it costs a family of four about $300 to go to a game, rather than the passionate fans who aren’t throwing flower pedals at the skates of the Montreal Canadians.
I’ll be surprised but appreciative if you post this.
April 10, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I have taken my 9 year old nephew to games at Fenway and tried hard to reinforce the positive when I feel there is nastiness all around. He is a pure fan, rooting for players on both the home and opposing teams. It’s really great to hear him clap for a great play, regardless of the team affiliation. I can only hope this attitude is as infectious as the general rantings that others have already documented so well. I love that you are trying to spread this by example. At Fenway, the bad examples are all around. It is shocking to see kids his age and younger wearing t-shirts that say Yankees Suck, Jeter (or take your pick of any other marquee player) Swallows. Adults are making and buying shirts like this for kids. It’s not funny, it’s pathetic. Let’s make sure the Good Fans shirts outweigh messages like these.
April 10, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Interesting idea, but it seems that you’re excluding the female fans in your current offerings of t-shirt styles and sizes. How about something in a size smaller than a men’s Medium? Or something with a v-neck and a closer fit to better accommodate some of the female sports fans out here? I’m not advocating for pastel colours (it irks me to see the proliferation of pink offerings for the professional sports teams – give me red and blue for the Sox any day!), but some variability in choice would be helpful.
April 10, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Just so happy to read about your organization in todays globe (april 10). Todays it seems everything is about degrading and demorilizing the opponent. No Respect. I for one will teach my children respect and sportsmanship. In recent years I have been to Fenway a few times and just found it unbelievable some of the things I hear people say in front of families and children. Very disturbing. I do not understand the Yankees suck chant? What does that say to our children? If you can not beat them hurl insults? Sad state of where our society is going. Glad to hear what you are doing!
April 10, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I had the misfortune of observing bad fan behavior being taught at college in front of 15000 fans. After touring Syracuse University this December with our high school daughter, we were excited to take her and her younger brothers to see a Syracuse basketball game in the Carrier Dome. I was horrified to see the institutionalized bad behavior on display. As they were introducing each of the opposing players, the Syracuse Cheerleaders walked across the super fan section with different signs stating such things as “Who cares?”, “Big Deal” and worse, which the fans shouted out on cue. The super fan section was located behind one of the baskets, and when the opposing team was trying to shoot at that basket, they would all shout and jump around (cheerleaders too, of course) to distsract them. I was horrified, and Syracuse slipped way down on our list. We had to talk about it with our 11 year old boys. Is this common at other bid Division 1 schools?
April 11, 2007 at 2:01 am
Well I think you’re at least half right, bud.
I love the game and I was in Fenway in the summer of 1967.
I also think they should weigh more thought on how their behavior reflects on themselves.
April 17, 2007 at 4:15 pm
I was in Baltimore for my Daughters track meet at Morgan State university last summer. So we decided to go to see baltimore play the white sox. There was a group of drunken White Sox fans behind us, Yelling and swaering the whole game. They also kept buying rounds of beer for each other to firm up there moronic bond. It just spoiled our whole time there. Kids can’t enter a bar room, Why should Drunk people be allowed to behave like that in front of impressable kids in public places. I paid $ 80.00 for our tickets and we could’t enjoy the game. I paid the money to watch the game why should I have to put up with that. I think it’s irresposable of the management to be selling alchol at games. It should be a game to focus on not Drunken idiots. I also demanded they refund my money witch they did.
November 6, 2007 at 11:22 am
I have played sports since I was little. I played college ball. I was employed with the college intramural department as a graduate assistant. Since then I have been involved with sports programming for a parks and recreation department for over 20 years. I will say without a doubt that fan and player behavior has gotten worse over the years. Someone stated that they felt incidents that happen are blown up by the media and are not the norm. I would like to say that things like this are a lot more common than most people realize. There are tons of incidents that never make the media.
In the time I have been with the parks department I have seen a parent punch an 18 year old umpire in the face (breaking his nose and glasses) over a call in a ten year old girls softball game. I have seen parents come toe to toe on the pitchers mound of a 6 year olds t-ball game. I have seen a father grab a 3rd grader and throw him to the ground because he did not like the way this child had tackled his son. I have seen a 12 year old girls soccer team spit in their hands before shaking hands with the opposing team. I have seen a 12 and under girls softball team spit on homeplate, then watch as their coach kicked dirt all over the plate while yelling that he did not like the umpiring for their game. I have watched as parents and coach from an opposing team continually harassed a 9 year old girl, telling everyone in the ball park that she was really a boy. Do you know the damage this did to this little girl? These are just some of the things I have seen in the YOUTH leagues.
I won’t take the time to talk about things I see in the adult arena. However, keep in mind the kids are learning this behavior from somewhere. I know people think it is fun to go to the ballpark of their favorite professional team and harass the players and officials. Just because they are getting paid to play a sport does not make them fair game. Would you like someone coming into your office yelling that you suck and your haircut sucks and you shouldn’t be paid to do what you are doing because you aren’t any good at it? What makes athletes or their officals fair game for your anger and abuse?
Kudos to goodfans!!!