Excessive Celebrating Is in Poor Taste

It was the inspiration in 1984 of professional football owners to introduce an anti-taunt rule, aimed essentially at discouraging one side from irritating the other, if, indeed, not causing it to take muscular exception.

The rule specifies that one can draw five or 15 yards--depending upon the severity of the crime--for “prolonged, excessive or premeditated celebrations by individual players or groups of players.”

No rule in football is administered more loosely. Maybe it is because officials witness celebrations on almost every play.

It no longer seems possible for a tackle to be made, or a pass knocked down, or a pass completed, without someone on the field celebrating.

And a touchdown? That’s New Year’s Eve.

Demonstrating after plays is wrecking the game. It breaks the concentration of those watching. And the taste is so questionable that it is hard to believe young guys are engaged in a sports event.

We are looking at the Rams and Pittsburgh last Monday night. Robert Delpino of the Rams is returning a kickoff when he and Tyronne Stowe of the Steelers have an accident. Helmet lowered, Stowe rams the helmet of Delpino.

The collision is shuddering. Delpino is knocked out.

He doesn’t even remember leaving Pittsburgh that night.

While Delpino is stretched on the turf, Stowe raises his arms triumphantly and performs a bit of Terpsichore, soon joined by teammate Jerrol Williams, who turns the scene into Mardi Gras.

Mind you, Williams is only a kibitzer, and he is carrying on as if he has finished off the Iraqis.

Well, this is one of those isolated cases where a flag is thrown for celebrating. The Steelers get 15 yards. Delpino doesn’t know it. And he has a headache until the following Wednesday.

It is not charged here that Pittsburgh tried purposely to injure the ballcarrier. Nor is it hinted that when the celebrating took place, the celebrants even knew that Delpino was hurt badly.

But since such a possibility always exists in football, and since the victim was laid out like a bowling lane, you would guess that before a dance begins, it first be ascertained whether the guy below is alive.

Tracing the start in sports of self-commendation, which is to say, the love-me-for-what-I-have-just-done habit, students of human behavior usually begin with Olympic champions from Europe, beginning in the 1950s.

It became the practice of the winner to take a victory lap, waving to his adoring minions, receiving their adulation.

Then soccer picks up the custom. Scoring a goal, a guy goes coconuts, jumping up and down, opening his arms for embraces, even kisses, from teammates.

And the next thing you know, it spreads to hockey.

You offer thanks the habit hasn’t spread to the NBA, where in a night maybe 230 points are involved.

Allowing for celebrations, a game would take eight hours.

Before long, celebrations would make their way to football, starting with touchdown efforts. Jim Brown was once asked why he comported himself so quietly in end zones. He responded: “I’ve been there before.”

You never saw O.J. Simpson dance or spike. Or Franco Harris, John Riggins or Earl Campbell. Do you see Marcus Allen make a production in the end zone today? He has scored 84 touchdowns, more than any other Raider.

One day we asked Ted Hendricks, who would go to the Hall of Fame, why he never turned a tackle into a musical revue. The question stunned him.

“I’m expected to make tackles,” he answered. “The only time a scene should be created is when I miss one.”

Coming up with a rule to water down celebrating, football should have stuck with it faithfully to discourage an athletic contest from degenerating into something suggesting wrestling.

What you see out there today is just short of burlesque. If the two teams run 140 plays, you might see exhibitionism of some sort on 135.

And when you see celebrations over a fallen carcass, as you did in the case of the Rams’ Delpino the other night, you’ve got to draw back and ask idly where the game is heading.

The rule against showboating is clearly on the books. It was put there to restore the dignity of the sport and of those who play it.

Each time the arms go up and the dance begins, the referee arriving on the scene should do a soft shoe, dropping a flag along the way.