The front page of the sports section of the Memphis morning publication describes a brawl between 2 16-AA teams in which numerous court and bench players and fans congregated on the court in the fourth quarter to duke it out. The game was abandoned and the winner at the time (of the game, not the fight) was pronounced victorious. I did not personally see the game; if this report is ficticious, then I would really like to hear what really went on. Nonetheless.................................
Here's some of the salient points of the article which I find absolutely amazing:
1) The MIAA AD said" seven or eight players from both teams will receive two game suspensions for leaving the bench." In most schools, if you get into a fight in the classroom, the suspension could be for weeks, not days.
2) The TSSAA asst. exec. said both teams "would be tagged with $500 fines as a result of the ejections and fans from both sides entering the playing area." Give me a break! The Memphis School System is already millions in the red, and the participants in the melee could care less. Some punishment for them, huh?
but here's the best one...(and I'll quote)
3) "...Coach.......declined to comment, except to say that "poor officiating" led to the game "getting out of hand." Now there's accepting responsibility for the students of which you're supposed to be charge! What's worse, if he's right, then his school is paying $500 for refs who were the cause of the whole mess!!
I personally think I should have read the terms "semester suspension", "arrest" , and "banned from future sporting events" somewhere in that article.