A slam-dunk

Certainly, tradition and rivalry are endemic to college sports — without them, the games schools play wouldn’t hold much meaning. But when traditions and rivalries escalate to violence among “fanatics,” the schools involved must take steps to impose sportsmanship and order.

That’s the case with the rivalry between Bangor’s Husson College and Standish’s St. Joseph’s College, where basketball games have been marred by crowd violence.

Consider the Olson family. Son Brad, a center for the Husson team, had some of his teeth broken during a Husson-St. Joe’s game a few years ago. Father, Duane, had his nose broken in a scuffle recently. And his wife had her arm bruised when a fan tossed a camera at her a few months ago.

The schools, worried that the violence at these games is getting out of hand, have organized a committee to make recommendations on how the games might yet be enjoyed, without punching, kicking and throwing of objects. The committee, headed by former Bangor Mayor Mary Sullivan, will being meeting later this month and hopes to have recommendations together by May 1.

As Julie Green, spokeswoman for Husson, notes, “This is not the NBA. It’s NAIA Division II basketball. It’s exciting but it’s secondary to the reason those kids are there.”

Which is to say, no one wants to diminish the competitiveness of either team, nor the value of a friendly rivalry between the schools. But the operative word is friendly.

At a time when violence both in schools and in sports at all levels is rightly coming under public scrutiny, neither school can afford to allow ruffianism to overtake the purpose college athletics are supposed to serve: character development and teamwork. Self-discipline is at the core of the athlete’s creed, and that discipline rightly ought to extend to those who admire the athletes on the court.

The zenith of this committee’s work must be to proclaim a zero-tolerance policy on fan violence. As such, one of the outcomes they must consider is the threat that, should the violence not abate at Husson-St. Joe’s games, fans will be barred from attending.

No one wants that. But the schools must set an example and make their intentions crystalline: Fighting has no place on college teams, and violence will not be tolerated by academic institutions that put student development ahead of spectacle.