It has not been a good month for national sports in the humanity department. How indicative the month has been of where sports fits on the decency scale is there for you to determine.

There was the debacle in Cleveland where the Browns’ fans shelled the football field with every kind of debris because of their unhappiness over an official’s call. Officials first ended the game with 48 seconds left on the clock. Then NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue ordered the players back on the field to complete the game some 30 minutes later.

Players and fans feared for their safety during the incident. Yet, the Cleveland owners went to the press after the game and said they were glad their fans “cared” about the team. The owners rescinded that nonsense the next day, but that was because of a cascade of negative reaction to their first statements, not because they meant it.

Why was the game finished with 48 seconds left and people fearing for their lives? Betting houses, including those in Las Vegas, will not pay off bets placed on an incomplete game. Please say that’s not the reason.

Since then the sports world has talked about what fans have the right to do at games under the aegis of “they paid their money, they have a right to….” Please. Despite the ludicrous price of tickets to pro events, there is no price that allows one to become criminal or otherwise act in a way that puts lives in danger.

On Monday night, the fans in New Orleans didn’t want to be left out of the fun, so they pelted the field with garbage when they didn’t like an official’s call. There will be more problems because TV loves the scenes even while they pontificate against them and the owners will let anything go on if it gets them publicity.

Then there is good old Bobby Knight. Finally run out of Indiana as a college basketball coach due to his inability to control himself, he resurfaces at Texas Tech. Over the weekend he gets into a shouting match with the manager of the facility his team played at in Houston. Knight thought the locker rooms were too s mall.

In the course of the discussion, Knight invites the manager outside to settle the matter with fists. They don’t, but the manager complains.

Next thing you know, the manager is apologizing to Knight and Texas Tech officials are wringing their hands over how the world just doesn’t understand dear Bobby. For those counting, this is remake 99 of this particular movie and they all look exactly the same.

George O’Leary was hired and fired in the same week as Notre Dame football coach. He had lied on his resume for 21 years about earning football letters at New Hampshire and earning an advanced degree from New York University.

Frank Mahoney, who first hired O’Leary as a college coach at Syracuse in 1980, said after O’Leary’s firing from Notre Dame, “I hired a football coach. I wasn’t hiring a classroom teacher. … I wouldn’t have cared if he never lettered in college. I wouldn’t have cared if he didn’t have a degree.”

Mahoney is never going to be the NCAA’s cover boy. Hey, football has nothing to do with the university it’s being played at. The games have nothing to do with the educational process, which brings us right back to Bob Knight doesn’t it?

A group of small colleges, mostly in New England, have announced they are considering dropping most, if not all, intercollegiate sports. Cost is obviously a concern, but there are other reasons… see above.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.