Maybe we should just ban adults from all sporting events

Asking adults to conduct themselves in a mature manner, unfortunately, is a big ask. Decency and common sense do not automatically come with age. Adults act poorly in restaurants, department stores, airline flights, and pretty much any other public space. Sporting events from T-Ball to the Super Bowl are where adults can be at their worst.

Fighting in the stands is the ugliest. However, violence, and racism, are not the only ways that adults mar sporting events. Sometimes they can just be gauche and embarrassing. Incidents in Miami and King Power Stadium in England were examples of that type of idiocy this weekend.

Tyreek Hill had just finished doing what he does, running past everyone on a football field. He had scored on a 69-yard touchdown run to put the Miami Dolphins up, 24-10, against the New York Giants. After he scored, he wanted to toss the ball to his mother who was in the stands. Hill motioned for everyone to move out of the way, but a man refused.

He kept trying to fake out the man, but this “adult” would not move because he was desperate for a ball that would be worth nothing since there is no way Hill would sign that ball. Eventually, Hill tried to toss it high, but the man snatched the ball. He kept it to himself until he was brought to his senses by Hill’s mom, another fan, and security.

If the ball was whipped into the stands, obviously it would be fair game. If the fan caught the ball in those circumstances, then he would have a fun story to tell about how he left Hard Rock Stadium with a football. But when a player is motioning to hand the ball to a specific person, the fan needs to act like a decent human being and stand down instead of causing a scene.

At least that man came to his senses. Across the pond, on Saturday at the Leicester City vs. Stoke City match, two adults were livid at a child. A boy was flashing the score at what were apparently Stoke City fans, and they were so livid that their faces were contorting.

The display from those two men was so pitiful, that if they had significant others that morning, I hope they were both single by the evening. There is no way that I could be seen in public with a person who has gone viral for screaming that angrily at a stranger who still has baby teeth.

I understand that sports do not promote rational behavior. People spend years making themselves miserable by watching a team lose over and over again. Emotion, along with the silliness of face painting and spending thousands of dollars to sit outside for three hours in winter, are what make the business work.

While people act in ways at sporting events that would not be tolerated elsewhere, at some point, fans need to behave like grown people. Don’t yell at children, and stay out of the way when players want to hand their moms a football.