By Brad Locke
December 24, 2003

(AgapePress) - It's become old hat for sports writers like myself to decry exhibitionism on the field of play. You know, end zone dances, taunting, that sort of thing.

Such displays of individualism in a team setting are certainly deplorable, even more so now that they've become rather commonplace. And now these self-aggrandizing occurrences have reached unprecedented levels. The NFL has always been the grandest and most visible stage for such grandiose acts, and so that is where we find the most egregious examples.

Take the Giants-Saints game, a Sunday nighter (December 14) on ESPN. New Orleans quarterback Aaron Brooks put on a spectacular show, tossing five touchdown passes, four of them to receiver Joe Horn. Those numbers were overshadowed, however, when Horn punched some numbers following one of his scores. He extracted a cell phone from beneath the goal post padding and proceeded to place a call, supposedly to his kids.

His team was penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct, and Horn was fined $30,000 by the league.

Earlier that day, Bengals receiver Chad Johnson scored a touchdown and then held up a sign that read, “Dear NFL, Please don't fine me again!!! Merry Christmas.” He was referring to several other fines he has accrued for sophomoric celebrations and uniform violations this season. He was tagged for another $10K this time.

Horn and Johnson are hardly the pioneers of this disturbing trend. No, the standard was set by 49ers receiver (what is it with these wide receivers?) Terrell Owens, whom Johnson admitted was the role model for his end zone theatrics. I'm sure you all recall The Sharpie Incident from last season. Owens scored a TD, pulled a Sharpie out of his sock, signed the ball and handed it to his financial adviser in the stands. While he was widely castigated in the media, he was not fined.

A few games later, Owens snatched a pair of pom-poms from a cheerleader after a touchdown and danced with them for a few moments.

Now, two questions must be asked concerning the origin of this behavior: Why do these players feel the need to celebrate so elaborately instead of just handing the referee the ball and heading back to the sideline quietly? And, is it really that big a deal?

In addressing the first question, it must be noted that in every instance I've cited so far, the player is a wide receiver. Sure, for every Terrell Owens you have a Larry Fitzgerald, the Heisman Trophy runner-up who has sparked a trend among Pittsburgh-area high schools of humbly handing the ball to the referee after a score.

But there's a reason wide receivers are the biggest offenders. Receiver isn't really considered a glory position. It's always been a notch below quarterbacks and running backs. Why? Because receivers depend on the quarterback to get them the ball; the running back almost always has more carries than any single receiver has catches; and teams normally have at least two receivers at a time on the field, and unless there is a great disparity in talent between one and the rest, the focus does not fall on a single receiver.

The why isn't the most important issue here, however. How people view this self-glorifying behavior and their reactions to it is what intrigues me most.

Announcer Paul McGuire and ESPN analyst Sean Salisbury (both white) both ripped Horn for getting on the horn. Salisbury's fellow analyst (and former wide receiver) Michael Irvin, who's black, defended Horn. How significant a factor race is in this matter, I can't affirm, but it's noteworthy nonetheless.

Fans, of course, were largely disgusted. But let me ask those of you who saw any of these incidents if you didn't emit at least a chuckle. I did. It made for good theater. Which is part of the problem. Sports has always been about entertainment, from the fans' perspective at least, but the players didn't always acknowledge it. Heck, maybe they weren't even cognizant of it, at least not while they were focused on the game at hand.

These days, athletes know they are also entertainers. They get paid like entertainers, and they draw the most attention when they entertain after the whistle.

And frankly, as long as the fans keep watching, and as long as we sports writers and our broadcast brethren keep making a big deal out of it, it's only going to escalate further. It doesn't matter if the reaction is positive or negative -- as long as there's a reaction.

Brad Locke (fredbob_sports@yahoo.com) is a sports journalist in Tupelo, Mississippi.

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