Throughout the history of sports there has always been cheating, foul play, and vulgar language.  The question now, is how big is bad sportsmanship in modern games? Is it a serious issue that needs to be addressed?

In professional sporting events, we have seen it all: biting off ears, injuring certain players, fights, bribing match officials to be more lenient towards their team etc. How are these people who are caught in the act of foul-play punished? Professional soccer player Luis Suarez was banned for biting Chelsea Fc’s Branislav Ivanovic, for ten matches and received a  fine from the English Football Association.

Mike Tyson, the notorious ear biter, was disqualified from a tournament and lost 3million dollars in winnings for biting Evander Holyfield’s ear. The question running through everyone’s mind after the Tyson ear biting incident: how did it taste?

Monte Vista High School has been around for 49 years and has produced phenomenal athletes in red and black. Lately, many athletes have spoken out about the increase of dirty play.

“Cal High is one of the schools that goes into games harder and plays pretty tough,” Sophomore Wiley Bonham said.

Does the amount of bad sportsmanship vary from city-to-city? Growing up in Oakland, on and off the soccer field, I have dealt with kids who have tried to provoke and harass players. Some may consider these kids justified to get so hyped on sporting occasions in lower-class areas. The reason being, that most kids in lower class areas only have sports to look forward to during the week. Many kids that I personally knew couldn’t afford to play on 1st division soccer teams because the fee was too expensive. In school, the basketball court was home to more fights than games. Is it the same here?

“I haven’t seen any sort of unsportsmanlike conduct  here [at MV] and I don’t think it’s a particularly big issue,” Vice Principal Gary Peterson said.

“It depends on the coach, the players, and the team.”

There is very little to do to remove foul play from sports besides increasing the severity of punishments toward players. Here at Monte Vista we represent our sports with the highest standards and pride, showing what it truly means to be a Mustang.