Trash Talk

   A couple Sundays ago I overreacted to some light taunting from a pair of Minnesota Viking fans at church. I probably would not have minded it except that I had Viking fans taunting me pretty much all week and I was tired of it. I knew the Packers weren't playing well and I fully expected them to lose their game with the Vikings. I didn't feel bad about my little meltdown until several hours later when I realized I had violated one of my own personal commandments, thou shalt not lose thy cool in public. I humbly apologized to the fans, who said they were not bothered by my meltdown.
  I was bothered by the fact that I had let this taunting get to me. I spent several hours thinking intensely about why I cared so much. The answer finally came to me. I don't like trash talk. I never trash talk anyone and I don't like people talking trash and taunting me.
  To me trash talk is borderline bullying. It's an opportunity for people to say mean things and cover it up by claiming competitive spirit, don't take it personally, it's just a game. No big deal. Get over it. Quit being such a pansy.
  Trash talk isn't necessary. One of my favourite shows is "A Football Life" on the NFL network. It is a one hour profile of football players, coaches and a couple others who are associated with the game. One of the things that I noticed about the older players profiled is how they didn't do touchdown dances or sack dances. They just flipped the ball to the nearest official and went on with the game. I never saw any trash talking or taunting in film clips.The closest I saw to trash talking on a profile of an older player was Washington Redskins coach George Allen badmouthing the Dallas Cowboys in an effort to fire up his team. 
  To me trash talking is counterproductive. The energy that is spent talking trash could be spent in other ways. It can also serve to get the other team fired up to do things that they would not be able to do. Superbowl XLII in February of 2008 proved that. (That was the year that the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots handing them the only loss they had all season.) Everyone assumed that the Patriots were naturally going to win and the Giants used this fuel to win the game.
  I also believe that talking trash sets a bad example. We all want our children to be respectful of others. Part of how we teach them this is to demonstrate that behavior ourselves. This goes out the window when sports is concerned. If some one is a player for or fan of the opposing team then the rules change. This can be confusing. It's not ok for me to pick on kids at school, but it is ok for you to mock someone wearing a jersey of a team you don't like.
  Once you have marked out a group as the "other team", it becomes easy to think of them as nameless, faceless objects. Then you don't have to be respectful, or even civil. You can say whatever you want because they are the opposing team. It doesn't even have to be another sports team. It can be any group that you don't like for whatever reason.
  I am willing to admit that part or maybe most of my attitude about this comes from many years of being bullied at school. This makes me hypersensitive to unkind treatment on any level. Still I do think that the increase in trash talk has something to do with the decrease in civil behavior that is so common today.
  We have enough meanness in the world today. There's enough garbage out there. Let's not add to it by engaging in trash talk. Find some way to recycle that trash talk into something better.