The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- October 11, 1999

Celebrate good times?

Some think rules meant to maintain decorum are spoiling the party

BY SCOTT DEITCH
STAFF WRITER

Everyone agrees that a college football field is a place where excitement should abound. All across the country student-athletes are encouraged to play with fervor and not to show weakness toward an opponent.

But not everyone agrees on when the fervor becomes excessive and "not showing weakness" turns into demeaning the other team.

The 1999 season is the fifth since the NCAA Football Rules Committee placed a special emphasis on promoting appropriate sportsmanship acts on the field. While the committee and the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) remain committed to curbing unsportsmanlike displays, spectators and media feel their effort is sapping excitement out of the game.

"We are not attempting to take excitement or celebration out of college football," said John Adams, Western Athletic Conference assistant to the commissioner and the Football Rules Committee's secretary-rules editor. "Our goal is to make such displays team-oriented.

"Football is one of the greatest team games. No player makes a play by himself. He has the help of 10 teammates."

Long-time concern

Although the rule concerning unsportsmanlike acts has received more attention of late, it is one that the rules committee has been addressing regularly for nearly 30 years.

In 1970, the rule prohibited the use of abusive or insulting language to players or officials by anyone subject to the rules, disallowed defensive players from using words or signals that disconcerted opponents when they were preparing to put the ball in play and required medical personnel to receive permission from the referee before coming onto the field.

Just one year later, the committee added a penalty for failure to return the ball to an official after a score or at any other time. An important change came in 1976 when "gestures or acts that provoke ill will, including swinging a hand or arm and missing an opponent or kicking and missing an opponent" were included as illegal acts.

With the 1979 season came the addition of any conduct that might incite players or spectators against officials. By 1983, the committee felt the need to be even more specific in defining the concepts of not returning the ball to an official and gestures or acts that provoke ill will.

Illegal actions with the ball that were first stated in 1983 included: taking it off the field; kicking or throwing it any distance that requires an official to retrieve it; spiking it to the ground; and throwing it high into the air.

Added to the acts that provoke ill will were: pointing the ball at an opponent, baiting an opponent verbally and inciting an opponent in any other way. Substitutes also were precluded from entering the field of play for purposes other than replacing a player, including demonstrations.

"The committee had to become more specific with the unsportsmanlike acts in order to address what was occurring on the field," Adams said. He was appointed to the committee in 1975 and served as its chair in 1980 and 1981. Throughout the remainder of the 1980s, Adams was a member of the committee's editorial subcommittee. He was named secretary-rules editor in 1991.

"It was important to send the message that it was not acceptable to demean an opponent," Adams said. "When you taunt another player by pointing the ball at him or bait him by saying something inappropriate, the situation could easily escalate into a fight."

Key changes were made in the early portion of this decade. In 1991, "demeaning to the image of the game" was attached to the sentence that prohibited language, gestures or acts that provoke ill will. Two years later, the committee voted to make illegal "any delayed, excessive or prolonged act by which a player attempts to focus attention upon himself."

Rules on video

Adams underscored the importance of penalizing these actions and attempting to curb them. "The rules committee and the NCAA as a whole have a responsibility to high-school, junior high and midget players to have appropriate behavior displayed in its games," he said. "They will duplicate whatever they see collegiate players do."

The last time the unsportsmanlike acts rule was adjusted was 1995, when the removal of a player's helmet while he is on the field was made illegal, except during timeouts and equipment adjustments, between periods or through play.

"The committee is not in any way interested in restricting the spontaneous enthusiasm and excitement that have made college football a national treasure," University of Georgia athletics director and committee chair Vince Dooley said at the time. "But the committee believes that some of the antics we are seeing on the field clearly go beyond enthusiastic to mean-spirited and self-promoting."

To emphasize that point, the rules committee in 1995 determined that it was necessary to communicate its seriousness in trying to improve sportsmanship in the game through more than just words.

During a special meeting that year, the committee and representatives from the AFCA, Collegiate Commissioners Association, NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and NCAA Presidents Commission Committee on Sportsmanship and Ethical Conduct in Intercollegiate Athletics gathered at the national office. The group viewed more than 140 plays involving potential unsportsmanlike behavior and reached consensus on how each one should be ruled.

The rulings were then made part of a videotape that was distributed to every NCAA football-playing institution and conference and to officials across the country before the 1995 season. "It was difficult for supervisors of officials to relate to their crews what should and should not be penalized," Adams said. "The video provided a clearer definition and a more consistent understanding of the rules for all players, coaches and officials."

AFCA Executive Director Grant Teaff, who was a member of the rules committee from 1983 through 1989 while head coach at Baylor University, believes the members of his organization are solidly in support of the rules committee's effort.

"We have tried to convey through the AFCA the message that the rules teach sportsmanship," Teaff said. "Their development is one of the best things that has happened to our sport."

In order to keep the message fresh in the minds of officials, players and coaches, the rules committee distributed another video on the subject during the summer of 1998. While the focus of the production remained the examples of legal and illegal displays of celebration, the video featured Archie Griffin of Ohio State University, the only two-time winner of the Heisman Trophy, as host.

So how do spectators view the effort? As with any such initiative, it has its detractors. E-mail messages to the NCAA Web site routinely indicate that people believe the rule is taking the fun out of college football, that offensive players are being restricted in their celebrations but defensive players are not or that the rule is being enforced differently from game to game.

However, it is unlikely that the list of unsportsmanlike acts will be shortened or the emphasis in trying to reduce them lessened. "From my viewpoint, sportsmanship has dramatically improved in the last five years," Adams said.

"If our organization feels it is a rule that needs to loosened, we would work with the rules committee to make the appropriate adjustments," Teaff said. "In my wildest imagination, I can't envision that occurring."