Slight of Hand?

Since the dawn of time, rigorous forms of competition brought out the best and the worse in people. There are certain individuals who thrived in the limelight for the better, and there are those who melt under the intensity of the moment like an abandoned Snickers bar on the sidewalk. But after an intense 60 minutes of competition where coaches and athletes alike poured their hearts and souls into a sporting event, their viewing audience expected them to act as if they were in front of their in-laws as soon as the game had ended. So when coaches Jim Harbaugh of the San Francisco 49ers and Jim Schwartz of the Detroit Lions had some extra curricular activities after a fairly aggressive post game handshake by Harbaugh, there was some criticism of how both coaches acted when it all went down.

            The radio airwaves were filled with the predictable topics of “who was at fault for causing this to happen?”, “how can this kind of behavior be accepted?” and even to the more humorous “who would win in a fight?” But the general agreement among all talk show hosts and fans was that both coaches should not have acted the way that they did right after a very competitive game.

            How could it have been fair to expect the coaches who were expected to get their players emotionally ready for an upcoming game to not get emotionally invested themselves? It was unrealistic for fans and analysts alike to expect these men to cast their own feelings of frustration aside and shake hands like business partners without any time to compose themselves emotionally.

            Fortunately for Harbaugh and Schwartz, the NFL decided against punishing either of these men because there were not any punches thrown. But even after the incident came to a close, the double standard of coaches pumping emotion into their players one minute and becoming soulless shells at the end of a high powered competition remained.

            In an ideal world, Schwartz and Harbaugh would have been able to shake hands peacefully and walk into the tunnel with their emotions bottled up just like the other coaches. But Harbaugh and Schwartz are human. Their respective reactions were understandable in the heat of battle. If the NFL wanted to avoid these situations then they would have the coaches’ wait for two minutes before the handshake to let the emotions out for just a brief moment. Sports enabled us as fans to see real passion and feelings, and the NFL should not have tried to quell what makes sports so fun to watch.