Tulane Green Wave On SI

What in the Hell is Going on in College Sports? Do Fights, Disrespect, Classlessness Rule?

This weekend was the worst of what we've seen this year.
Doug Joubert|
Post Game Brawl between Texas State and Louisiana
Post Game Brawl between Texas State and Louisiana | Still image from video posted to X by Cajun Sports Talk

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Tulane Green Wave

Maybe I'm just old. Maybe that's it. I just don't remember anything like this when I was growing up watching sports in the 60s, 70s, 80s, or even the 90s.

There has been a rash of coaches and players claiming disrespect from their opponents or coaches, showing outright disrespect during a game, or just a general mode of classlessness.

The first I saw this weekend was the Texas State-Louisiana kerfuffle. After the game was over, the two teams met at midfield, but not to congratulate or commiserate.

This was not an isolated incident, either.

And the amount of classlessness shown seems to be the norm instead of the exception.

And it's not just limited to football. This Saturday afternoon, I covered the Texas State-Tulane basketball game. During the contest, a Bobcat player stood over a Tulane player after blocking his shot and knocking him down. He hovered over him in a threatening way, looking like he was daring him to get up. He had to be pulled away by one of the officials.

I truthfully cannot tell you why this is happening. Some say it's the way things are now in the world we live in. Others will point to emotional immaturity or other factors. I am not disparaging any of those programs or even the players mentioned in the X/Twitter posts that I linked earlier in this article. Instead, I use them as the most current examples of what is going on in collegiate athletics.

This is embarrassing, not just to the programs involved, but to the fans, the players, to the coaches and to the universities they represent.

When a coach recruits a player, he or she does not know everything that makes that player tick. Thus, the coach must instill a certain atmosphere that runs through her or his program. Yes, players are at fault in these instances, but this falls on the coaches to ensure it cannot happen ever again.

If the coaches won't take of this, institutional controls must take precedence. Athletic directors have to guarantee their institutions' public faces are protected.

If athletic directors won't do it, university presidents must.

If university presidents won't, conferences must act.

If conferences won't, the NCAA has to make it a nation-wide solution.

And don't tell me it can't be done.

Now the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) has announced that Guilford College and Averett University will both discontinue their football seasons due to an altercation between the two programs. A well-written piece WFXR's website tells the tail of what happened, what the consequences are, and how quickly the conference put things into action.

And just a week ago, Samford came to New Orleans to play Tulane in a men's basketball game. When a Samford player fouled a Tulane shooter, he didn't just help the Green Wave player up afterwards, I saw him point to himself and say, "My bad," to the TU player.

I can tell you this. In addition to my journalism and broadcasting career, I was an educator for over thirty years. I saw a change in my middle school students over the years that concerned me, as it did my administrators. We found that even those students who came to us with a less than ideal attitude towards themselves or others could be affected by us: by our attitude towards others, by our attitude towards our students, and most importantly, our attitudes towards ourselves. We found that when we love those students unconditionally, it can change their lives and the lives those students touch from that day forward.

You may not like Jon Sumrall as a football coach or Ron Hunter or Ashley Langford as basketball coaches at Tulane (how that is possible is beyond me). However, I have heard and seen them all profess and show their love for their players and coaches. Maybe I'm being too naive, but I don't think you'll ever see a Tulane player or team show what was shown in those X/Twitter posts. It just doesn't fit the culture of those coaches' teams, or Tulane culture in general.

No matter the wins or losses, that is something to be proud of as a Tulane supporter.

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Doug Joubert
DOUG JOUBERT

Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.

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