A lot has been written this past week on the bad behavior of U.S. fans at last week’s Ryder Cup. Here’s a different observation on what occurred.
If you watched the first two days, you saw the U.S. get waxed. Fans were jerks, jeering the Europeans and cheering when they hit a poor shot.
Focusing on the negative, the Europeans thrived off the goading U.S. fans. They stepped up. They played great.
Conversely, the U.S. players were not invigorated by the poor sportsmanship. They didn’t have much energy.
Sunday, what happened? U.S. fans focused on cheering for their team. Though not perfect, for the most part, the stood up for their team and focused on positivity.
And, what was the result? Instead of folding, the U.S. almost staged one of the greatest comebacks in golf history.
What does this say? I’m not going to argue the change in the direction of the fans focus from negative to positive (for the most part) improved the outcome, but I will argue it contributed to the U.S. resurgence on Sunday.
Here’s why. Over and over and over and over again, I see in sports where fans target sports officials (referee and umpires) with their ire. They finger point. They assess blame. “They blew that call and that’s why we lost.”
As a basketball referee myself, I see this syndrome constantly. A coach berates you. His team plays with a nasty edge. The players take on the personality of the coach.
One of our enforcement tools is a technical foul. When you hit the coach with a deserved technical foul for his verbal harassment, ALMOST ALWAYS their teams starts to play better.
Here’s one example (I could insert a multitude of examples, but this will suffice) from basketball games I’ve officiated in recent seasons. There was a 15-year-old male coaching a fifth grade girls team. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he thought he did.
The girls must have thought he did, too, because as he began to mouth off in the first half, they played worse and worse, taking actions against the other team (causing us to call even more fouls on them) as their coach yelled at us. Enough. I gave him a technical foul. Things calmed down.
Early in the second half, he went off on my partner. No brainer for me. I assessed another technical foul and tossed him from the gym, then went over to the parents and suggested one of them needed to coach. A woman came over.
She supported the girls, used an encouraging tone of voice. Holy cow, the girls responded. They handled the ball better, made better decisions, closed the gap a bit in a game where they were decisively the inferior team. They improved.
I’ve seen this happen again and again on the basketball court. When you hit a coach with a tech for their out-of-control behavior, they start to coach rather than blame the officials for the bad play of their team. Players respond to the change. Momentum swings
Many U.S. fans at the Ryder Cup need to understand this (and perhaps a segment of US society as well). Quit being nasty jerks. If you cheer, if you act in a positive manner, people respond, teams respond. You get the desired result. Attacking others doesn’t get you where you want to go. Our country can use that reminder.
If you watched the first two days, you saw the U.S. get waxed. Fans were jerks, jeering the Europeans and cheering when they hit a poor shot.
Focusing on the negative, the Europeans thrived off the goading U.S. fans. They stepped up. They played great.
Conversely, the U.S. players were not invigorated by the poor sportsmanship. They didn’t have much energy.
Sunday, what happened? U.S. fans focused on cheering for their team. Though not perfect, for the most part, the stood up for their team and focused on positivity.
And, what was the result? Instead of folding, the U.S. almost staged one of the greatest comebacks in golf history.
What does this say? I’m not going to argue the change in the direction of the fans focus from negative to positive (for the most part) improved the outcome, but I will argue it contributed to the U.S. resurgence on Sunday.
Here’s why. Over and over and over and over again, I see in sports where fans target sports officials (referee and umpires) with their ire. They finger point. They assess blame. “They blew that call and that’s why we lost.”
As a basketball referee myself, I see this syndrome constantly. A coach berates you. His team plays with a nasty edge. The players take on the personality of the coach.
One of our enforcement tools is a technical foul. When you hit the coach with a deserved technical foul for his verbal harassment, ALMOST ALWAYS their teams starts to play better.
Here’s one example (I could insert a multitude of examples, but this will suffice) from basketball games I’ve officiated in recent seasons. There was a 15-year-old male coaching a fifth grade girls team. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he thought he did.
The girls must have thought he did, too, because as he began to mouth off in the first half, they played worse and worse, taking actions against the other team (causing us to call even more fouls on them) as their coach yelled at us. Enough. I gave him a technical foul. Things calmed down.
Early in the second half, he went off on my partner. No brainer for me. I assessed another technical foul and tossed him from the gym, then went over to the parents and suggested one of them needed to coach. A woman came over.
She supported the girls, used an encouraging tone of voice. Holy cow, the girls responded. They handled the ball better, made better decisions, closed the gap a bit in a game where they were decisively the inferior team. They improved.
I’ve seen this happen again and again on the basketball court. When you hit a coach with a tech for their out-of-control behavior, they start to coach rather than blame the officials for the bad play of their team. Players respond to the change. Momentum swings
Many U.S. fans at the Ryder Cup need to understand this (and perhaps a segment of US society as well). Quit being nasty jerks. If you cheer, if you act in a positive manner, people respond, teams respond. You get the desired result. Attacking others doesn’t get you where you want to go. Our country can use that reminder.
