There Are Breaks and There Are Brakes : Haden Says Fans Should Tone Down Cheers When Players Are Injured

In all his years of football, John Robinson never has been able to figure out the mentality of the fan.

“How could all those people in Washington (Monday night) be booing and screaming at Joe Theismann?” the Rams’ coach mused Tuesday. “This guy took ‘em to two Super Bowls. Then when he breaks his leg and they carry him off, they’re all up cheering, ‘Hey, Joe, we love ya.’ ”

Criticism in the press he can understand, he said, because at least it is somewhat consistent. But to Robinson a loyal fan is a loyal fan.

“It always seems to be the quarterback,” Robinson said. “It’s the only sport where the blame is focused so strongly on one position. I don’t know of any quarterback who hasn’t gone through it.”

Only those, perhaps, who haven’t had a chance to play and earn the fans’ dying devotion. A few weeks ago the San Francisco 49ers’ fans, disenchanted with Joe Montana because he hadn’t won a Super Bowl in nine months, were clamoring for Matt Cavanaugh.

One Ram quarterback, Pat Haden, was booed into early retirement. Reporters greeted him with a standing boo at his retirement press conference, just so he’d feel at home. Of course, Haden was touched.

But the fans also cheered Haden at least once: the day it was announced he had broken a finger and wouldn’t be able to continue.

Haden recalled that low moment in his career.

“I speak to a lot of parents’ groups about the direction of American athletics and why I’m concerned,” he said. “I cite a couple of examples, and that’s one of them. I broke my hand and it was announced on the scoreboard, and people actually cheered my injury.

“Now, I don’t expect people to like the way I play, but there’s something wrong when they’re cheering someone else’s misfortune.

“There also was a few years ago when Dan Pastorini was playing quarterback for the Raiders in Oakland. He broke his leg and was being carried off the field on a stretcher. He not only was being booed but people were throwing things at him.

“There’s something wrong when those kind of things are happening, and it seems to be happening with more frequency. That’s really one of the reasons I got out of the game. I found myself getting more and more cynical about sports.”

Haden--lawyer, sportscaster, computer salesman--has been retired for four years, and he said he doesn’t miss playing.

“It’s such a frustrating position to play when you’re not playing well and getting booed,” he said. “You feel like everybody hates you. You become more and more cynical about fans and the press. It makes you realize that there are very few people who really care about you.

Some fans say that since they have purchased a ticket, they have a right to carry on.

“You don’t have a right to throw full beer bottles at people, which I’ve had people throw at me walking out that tunnel in the Coliseum,” Haden said. “It doesn’t entitle you to be sub-human. I always came out of the locker room late on purpose so I wouldn’t have run-ins with people--generally people who have had too much to drink.”

The attitude is not exclusive to pro football, Haden said.

“There used to be a large difference between college and pro crowds. It’s getting thinner, that margin.

“(BYU quarterback) Robbie Bosco, believe it or not, was getting booed heavily the other day when his first two passes were picked off for touchdowns by Air Force. If you can get booed in Provo, Utah when you’re the defending national champion, you know something’s wrong.”

As Haden, current Ram quarterback Dieter Brock and others will attest, you can even get booed in Orange County, where the fans are as laid back as lounge chairs.

Brock, the current object of their derision, might have been booed when he couldn’t pass a kidney stone if anyone had sold tickets to the event. Booing the quarterback is a national pastime, but it doesn’t stop there. Fans also write letters to the newspapers. Brock is advised not to read the papers.

The more creative fans hire airplanes to deliver their messages. Brock is advised not to look up.

Of course, there is one quick way he can turn the boos into cheers, but that isn’t advisable, either. He can break a leg.