The Omnibus

Issue date: 10/7/04 Section: Sports

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On any given afternoon, one can travel around this fair city of Bolivar and hear the childish screams and arguments coming from the school playgrounds. Unfortunately, this Bolivar school is Southwest Baptist University, and the playground is our beloved intramural football field.

Every day an intramural football game is being played, someone gets their feelings hurt, the referees miss a call or two and the football field becomes a public forum discussion on the ethics of Western civilization, with testosterone-filled males assuming the roles of Plato and Socrates. Usually the flow of argument stems from some famous philosopher's statement, "He started it." I think it originated with Adam. After three years of play, however, it is really starting to irk me.

What is disappointing is not just the angry responses of athletes to the officials or the unneccessary trash-talking that leads to so many cheap hits the next play. Rather, it is the fact that no one else seems bothered. I will give the Intramural department some mad "e-props," using a Xanga term, for instituting the two-game ejection punishment for profanity. Although some would say the punishment is harsh, college-age people, "young adults," should have control over their speech.

The talking that remains is still very negative. I was impressed last year when I attended several intramural football games at our neighboring Southwest Missouri State Universtiy. It seemed so strange to me that significantly less negative speech was occurring at a secular unversity. In fact, arguments with the referees were practically non-existent. It seemed the intramural directors there, at a state-sponsored, "non-Christ-centered, caring....blah blah blah" university, had developed a good way to limit unnecessary negative talking. How?

The university made a simple rule that only the team captains, (we know them as that person who fronts us five dollars every time sign-ups roll around), are allowed to conference with the officials during the game. Anyone else who does so is automatically ejected. Why is no such rule in place at SBU? I do not know--maybe they did not think of it yet or it was voted down in committee.

Either way, I remember a time when football was about fun back in elementary school. Actually, I mostly remember the good fights, the exclusion and the smell of sweaty fifth graders almost in tears. In fact, maybe not that much has changed in football. I think it is about time it did.

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