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Marcus Smart shoves fan

Ewing definitely got a lot of gorilla/monkey stuff thrown his way in college.
 
The first time he saw two coaches try to destroy each other, John Calipari laughed. It was 1980, late in his sophomore year, and he had just transferred to Division II Clarion (Pa.) State after washing out as a D-I guard at UNC-Wilmington. Now here he was at the raucous, packed Pennsylvania State Athletic Championship game, Clarion hosting Cheyney State. Unable to suit up until the following season, Calipari had kept busy sweeping the gym floor and reading books like The Power of Positive Thinking. He was sitting behind the Clarion bench when Cheyney State coach John Chaney, riding the officials hard just before halftime, flung his sport coat to the floor. Clarion coach Joe DeGregorio put his arms around a ref's shoulders, rasping, "Don't worry about him."

Chaney bulled forward. "What are you doing?" he screamed. "I'm half of this damn game!"

"Hey, John," DeGregorio said.

"What?"

"F--- you!"

Chaney lunged, spittle flying. DeGregorio planted his feet. "Two football players jumped out of the stands and knocked John to the floor," DeGregorio says. "They kept us in the locker room [for halftime] an extra five minutes. I came out and shook his hand and got a standing ovation. They beat us by seven."
 
Many of the various opinions expressed here in this thread can actually co-exist.

Fans need to get a grip and not take sports so seriously or make them so personal... It is ridiculous. Cheer for your team. cheer against the other team, try to distract them - whatever...

That being said, I'm sorry, but a fan at a game needs to be free to shout and cheer what they want without fear of physical assault by an athlete. If a fan is out of control, saying or doing things that are over the line, someone (a coach or player who hears or sees them, or nearby fans) can and should ask security to either control them or escort them out. It has happened before and will happen again. Under no circumstances is it warranted, nor can it be tolerated, for an athlete to physically respond to a fan.

I saw a Wake fan get escorted out of the G'boro coliseum - he was seated close behind the Carolina bench and shouted out for everyone to hear a classic Dean Smith joke - I think it was the one where Dean and Linda Lovelace differ in that she doesn't choke on the big ones. Dean calmly contacted security and that guy was no longer in the building.

What about all the fans that had the "no means no" signs directed at Sheldon Williams - calling him a rapist. That is pretty incendiary, no? What if he had snapped? For those of you saying Smart was justified in what he did, would Sheldon have been?
 
scooter84 said:
Many of the various opinions expressed here in this thread can actually co-exist.

Fans need to get a grip and not take sports so seriously or make them so personal... It is ridiculous. Cheer for your team. cheer against the other team, try to distract them - whatever...

That being said, I'm sorry, but a fan at a game needs to be free to shout and cheer what they want without fear of physical assault by an athlete. If a fan is out of control, saying or doing things that are over the line, someone (a coach or player who hears or sees them, or nearby fans) can and should ask security to either control them or escort them out. It has happened before and will happen again. Under no circumstances is it warranted, nor can it be tolerated, for an athlete to physically respond to a fan.

I saw a Wake fan get escorted out of the G'boro coliseum - he was seated close behind the Carolina bench and shouted out for everyone to hear a classic Dean Smith joke - I think it was the one where Dean and Linda Lovelace differ in that she doesn't choke on the big ones. Dean calmly contacted security and that guy was no longer in the building.

What about all the fans that had the "no means no" signs directed at Sheldon Williams - calling him a rapist. That is pretty incendiary, no? What if he had snapped? For those of you saying Smart was justified in what he did, would Sheldon have been?
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I get your overall point, but when Smart came face to face with Orr, Orr should have shut the fuck up. If he is yelling that stuff while Smart is at the free throw line, Smart isn't coming after him.

Always hated that No Means No sign.
 
CDeacMan said:
Yeah I recall a Wake undergrad screaming "you f***ing mutt" at the point guard for GT back in 1999. People say horrible things at sporting events.

Bill Simmons discussed this with Chuck Klostermann on the BS Report yesterday. He even brought up the nut-punch incident, not necessarily equating them, but rhetorically asking how huge of a story it would be if had happened today instead of 10 years ago when you see the social media storm surrounding this Smart incident.
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Yea, I heard that too. Obviously with Twitter everything is a bigger deal now than it was pre-Twitter, but I tend to think any confrontation between a player and fan(s) will always garner more attention than any such similar confrontation between two competing players. Also, I would add that there's a flipside: not only would Twitter have increased the visibility and controversy of the nut punch itself, but also the reported "justification" for it. IOW, Twitter is an equal opportunity sounding board, and I find it likely that the rumors of Hodge mouthing off to CP about his deceased grandfather would've spread just as voraciously as the punch itself.

Edited to add: This is to say nothing of an eminently crucial distinction between the Smart shove and the CP nut punch; one of them was broadcast on ESPN, and the other was not. For that reason alone I think the media coverage would've been wildly different. (ESPN has more or less served around-the-clock coverage of the Smart highlights drawn from (surprise!) its own broadcast.)
 
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qcdeac said:
I get your overall point, but when Smart came face to face with Orr, Orr should have shut the fuck up. If he is yelling that stuff while Smart is at the free throw line, Smart isn't coming after him.

Always hated that No Means No sign.
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Of course Orr should have shut up - and it is very different being face-to-face with a fan like that as opposed to being out on the court. I get that. I'm not saying it is easy to show restraint in that situation, only that it is required. If Orr really did use a racial slur, Smart could have grabbed a security guard (I'm sure they are around the court) and told them... Or told someone on the bench to do so.. Again, not easy to remain calm when your adrenalin is flowing and maybe you are frustrated with the way the game is going - but you have placed yourself in that position and that is a prerequisite for the job.
 
scooter84 said:
Many of the various opinions expressed here in this thread can actually co-exist.

Fans need to get a grip and not take sports so seriously or make them so personal... It is ridiculous. Cheer for your team. cheer against the other team, try to distract them - whatever...

That being said, I'm sorry, but a fan at a game needs to be free to shout and cheer what they want without fear of physical assault by an athlete. If a fan is out of control, saying or doing things that are over the line, someone (a coach or player who hears or sees them, or nearby fans) can and should ask security to either control them or escort them out. It has happened before and will happen again. Under no circumstances is it warranted, nor can it be tolerated, for an athlete to physically respond to a fan.

I saw a Wake fan get escorted out of the G'boro coliseum - he was seated close behind the Carolina bench and shouted out for everyone to hear a classic Dean Smith joke - I think it was the one where Dean and Linda Lovelace differ in that she doesn't choke on the big ones. Dean calmly contacted security and that guy was no longer in the building.

What about all the fans that had the "no means no" signs directed at Sheldon Williams - calling him a rapist. That is pretty incendiary, no? What if he had snapped? For those of you saying Smart was justified in what he did, would Sheldon have been?
Click to expand...

The ironic thing about Sheldon is that the Dick fans did worse to Herman Veal back in the day. I remember them chanting "rapist" clearly whenever he was on the FT line. Forget what else, but that wasn't a good day to be Herman Veal. And in both instances, I have no problem with what the Wake and Dick fans did to Sheldon and Herman. Athletes are public figures, and those 2 public figures had allegedly committed pretty bad crimes.

What I think is out of bounds and ejection from the arena worthy behavior is racist, sexist or sexual preference language or really heinous personal stuff, like the crackhead parent chant the UVA kids did to Juan Dixon (both his parents were heroin addicts who had died of AIDS when he was a kid). Short of that type of stuff, cheer and make fun of the other team to your heart's content.
 
cville deac said:
The ironic thing about Sheldon is that the Dick fans did worse to Herman Veal back in the day. I remember them chanting "rapist" clearly whenever he was on the FT line. Forget what else, but that wasn't a good day to be Herman Veal. And in both instances, I have no problem with what the Wake and Dick fans did to Sheldon and Herman. Athletes are public figures, and those 2 public figures had allegedly committed pretty bad crimes.

What I think is out of bounds and ejection from the arena worthy behavior is racist, sexist or sexual preference language or really heinous personal stuff, like the crackhead parent chant the UVA kids did to Juan Dixon (both his parents were heroin addicts who had died of AIDS when he was a kid). Short of that type of stuff, cheer and make fun of the other team to your heart's content.
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they were yelling "fuck fuck" and and threw women's panties during intros
 
BillBrasky said:
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/i-was-sort-of-a-prick-j-j-redick-on-playing-j-j-redick/

Redick says throughout that game, he and Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, seated courtside, exchanged barbs. “He was talking noise to me the whole game, and I was just yapping back,” Redick says. “I watch video now of me in college, and I just think, What are you doing, man?”
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I was already a Bisciotti fan. Now I'm a bigger fan. And yes JJ, you were a prick in college.

The other thing about this Smart incident that the ESPN talking heads don't seem to mention is how this bodes for Smart's NBA future. It won't affect his draft stock unless he also interviews very poorly. But if he comes across well, this 1 incident won't affect where he goes. But opposing players and fans will remember this and he'll be the recipient of an above average amount of trash talk in an effort to get him to lose his cool. Whoever is coaching him next season will need to work with him on his anger management. All it's gonna take is 1 incident like this next year, and the verbal abuse and trash talking will become nearly constant.
 
cville deac said:
The ironic thing about Sheldon is that the Dick fans did worse to Herman Veal back in the day. I remember them chanting "rapist" clearly whenever he was on the FT line. Forget what else, but that wasn't a good day to be Herman Veal.
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Didn't the Duke fans have a sign asking Veal if he sent the girl flowers afterward?
 
Glad Maggie Hurt waited until Gary Clark was finished playing to go public. Going to Duke, Maryland, etc definitely would have sucked for him.
 
When Maryland's Herman Veal was alleged to have sexually abused a fellow student -- he was disciplined, but never formally charged -- the Crazies showered him with more than 1,000 panties, and one student held up a sign that read, "HEY, HERM, DID YOU SEND HER FLOWERS?" (After this incident, Lefty Driesel once again distinguished himself as a good sport and worthy foe. When asked if he was upset by the sign, Lefty said, "No, I can't read. I went to Duke.")

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/cameron/hits.html
 
scooter84 said:
Didn't the Duke fans have a sign asking Veal if he sent the girl flowers afterward?
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This might be urban legend but as the story goes former Carolina player Scott Williams's (the real basketball player...not Roy's son) dad killed his mother and then shot himself. Duke students hung a sign above the visitor locker room that read "Scott, how's the family?"
 
WakeFanatic said:
Well, he didn't "go" into the stands, at least not like Ron Artest did. He happened to land in the stands, right in front of the guy. And if anyone believes all Orr said to Smart was "You're a piece of crap," then indeed, we have some fucking idiots posting here.
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Considering we have audio evidence, that is actually a good belief to have.
 
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