Ordinarily, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to see a lot of celebration on the field from professional athletes. So while watching Monday Night Football, I was totally shocked and surprised to see a celebration that I actually thought was great.
The 49ers’ all-pro receiver Terrell Owens scored after he beat Seattle’s Shawn Springs for a late touchdown. Following the score, Owens didn’t go to the conventional spike of the ball or dunk the football over the crossbar. Instead, he magically produced a Sharpie marker that he had hidden in his sock earlier in the game, autographed the ball and gave it to a mutual friend and business associate of his and Springs’ who had end-zone seats for the game.
Now that was creative. Perhaps what we really need in today’s celebrations is a bit more creativity and originality. A great change of celebrations as usual in the league.
Lately the celebrations and self-promotion in the NFL have gotten incredibly out of hand. Recently I was watching a game where a player, on a defense that had given up nearly 200 yards to a back, made a nice tackle at the line of scrimmage. The player had the stupidity to run around after the play, waving his arms to let everybody know that you can’t run on him. His team was losing, his defense had been shredded — he should probably want to hide on the sideline rather than draw attention to himself, in my opinion.
Worse than players who celebrate when their team is hopelessly losing are those who are winning, make a good play and then injure themselves (coincidentally hurting the team) while they are attempting to celebrate.
No one can stand the way the Gramaticas celebrate after every single field goal, so in one of God’s best moves of all time, He taught the two kickers a life lesson last season when, via a freak celebratory accident, Bill tore knee ligaments after he made a game-winning kick.
Silly and costly injuries don’t only go with kickers, however. Two Mondays ago, the Packers were drubbing the Bears when Pro Bowler Darren Sharper intercepted an errant pass as he fell out of bounds. In a lather to get up and celebrate, Sharper got to his feet with some sort of dance move a la Michael Jackson. Although he still got his celebration on as he hobbled across the field to the sideline, he sat out the rest of the game and didn’t play the next week. Nice work, Sharper.
In comparison with those incidents, there is no need for anyone to get upset about Owens. He didn’t hurt himself, he didn’t hurt his team, and I don’t believe he showed up Springs, a player he is friends with. He had also told the man who received the ball that he would give him a ball if he scored a touchdown. Yes, it was premeditated, but I don’t mind a little planning if it results in something fun.
Look at soccer. No other game in the world allows as much celebration after a score. The players can do nearly anything they want, whether it be simply running back to the mid-stripe, dancing with a corner flag or stripping off articles of clothing. Yet, despite having celebrations after goals, the players aren’t reduced to showboating after every single play during the game.
When was the last time you saw a defender turn aside an attack by getting the ball out of bounds and then do a silly dance? Have you ever seen a goalie stop a shot and talk smack at the player who took it? No? Neither have I, and I have been around this game all my life. Perhaps it is no coincidence that a game that rewards creativity has also developed the most creative and truly entertaining celebrations in all of sports.
For his part in trying to encourage a little fun in the league, Terrell Owens deserves high marks on what will likely come to be known as “the Sharpie incident.”
Through the evolution of the NFL, there have been at least a few original celebrations that have gone on to reach some level of fame. Nobody remembers much about Ickey Woods other than the “Ickey Shuffle,” but the silly dance craze in the league certainly picked up steam when Woods got the ball rolling for Deion Sanders.
Terrell Davis may or may not be inducted into the Hall of Fame, but the “Mile-High Salute” will continue to sporadically reappear for years to come.
LeRoy Butler engineered one of the longest-running NFL celebratory traditions when he did the “Lambeau Leap” for the first time after scoring on an interception return.
All these celebrations were started by one individual and went on to be done over and over again by others from their own teams and teams across the league.
You can bet this won’t be the case with Terrell Owens’ latest action. Another player will never pull a Sharpie out of his sock, sign a ball and give it away. The league has already ensured that by promising to take disciplinary action if anyone, including Owens, repeats the stunt. That is one of the great things about it; we will never have to suffer through the countless parade of players signing balls after scores. It will never become the NFL’s next celebration craze. The event will go down as a single player being creative after a score in an effort to make the game more fun for himself and fans alike. I welcome that and wouldn’t mind seeing more of it.
The naysayers and haters will be quick to say that if this sort of thing is allowed, then where will this kind of foolishness stop?
I’m not sure where it will stop, but if it produces a few more opportunities for me to have a laugh while I watch a game, then I look forward to finding out. I mean, how bad could it get? We have already seen the ’86 Bears and “The Super Bowl Shuffle” that came with them.
