Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Indian Wells
I feel the event that took place at Indian Wells with the Williams sisters was unfortunate. While the circumstances may have appeared to be fishy there is no way it could be proved that there was wrong doing on the behalf of Venus and Serena. There is no place for booing and racial slurs to be thrown at a nineteen year old girl and her family.
People need to realize injuries occur with professional athletes all the time. Even the slightest injury can nag an athlete in all aspects of the game especially a game that lasts as long as tennis does. Tennis matches can last for hours on end of non stop running back and forth. If Venus had an injury I have no reason to doubt her. I know if I have an injury that tweaks the way I play and is uncomfortable, I don't want to have to run non stop for hours and try to beat someone who is at the top of her game. I understand it may look bad on Venus for withdrawing but she has to do what is best for herself and if she thought withdrawing was best then we as fans have to respect that. Fans need to realize that Tennis is her source of income and her life, if she plays hurt and furthers her injury who knows what that could do to her career.
As for booing Serena the entire match, fans have that right but they also need to realize she was only a nineteen year old girl at that point in her life. Many of those fans probably have children around that same age. How would they feel if thousands of people booed their kid and yelled racial slurs at them? It could not have been easy for Serena. It was probably very intimidating in that environment given that the majority of the crowd are white people yelling and booing at her. She has no place to run and hide like most nineteen year olds would resort to. Instead she competed at a high level like a true professional.
I found the video of Indian Wells very interesting. You could obviously see fans booing, yelling, and cussing at Richard and Venus as they walked into the stadium. Once again being surrounded by thousands of white people yelling slurs at you and your family as you are one of few African Americans has to be very intimidating. At one point Richard stopped and looked at one fan after he yelled something. I can not blame Richard, as a father it is natural to go into protection mode when people are chastising his children. I also did notice the similarities to the raising of his fist as the sprinters did in the 1968 Olympics. I will defend him as I feel it showed him symbolizing unity with his family in an obviously difficult position.
There is no place in sports for what happened at Indian Wells in 2001 and I hope no family or athlete will have to go through that again. Fans need to realize athletes are humans as well and can not always perform if they ae hurt. Post by Jared King.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Comment done by Trent Ringle
ReplyDeleteI understand and agree with everything that Jared is talking about in this post. The treatment that was placed towards the Williams sisters should be an outrage for all sports fans. I can understand be in a competitive game where fans will dis-like a player or cheer extra hard to upset the other team, however to take one's anger in such a negative manner as the fans did at Indian Wells was just ridiculous. On the other side for the Williams sister to boycott this tournament and not return I feel it sends another image that the fans have won or beat them. If we look at the Lebron James incident, when he first came back to Cleveland more racial slurs were directed towards him throughout the entire game than at the Williams sister. To go along with this members of the audience were walked out of the stadium because of what they were saying and doing. This however did not stop him from coming back to Cleveland and playing. I feel that the Williams sister should be upset with what happen that day but need to overcome it and move on as well.
I agree with both statements above. This situation got out of control and ugly very quickly. The thing that I am most disappointed by was the fact that no officials or anybody in charge of Indian Wells stepped in to make this booing and racial comments stop. Like I stated on the discussion board when people get to loud cheering and clapping the officials ask for quite. Why did they not do anything in this situation. Also in any other sport if this happened it would be totally uncalled for. For example, this pass golf tournament tiger woods walked off the course for a injury. We didn't see people yelling and booing at him. If this were to happen in a golf tournament everyone would know about it and the people would probably be kicked out of the golf course. I think not only is this discrimination against them as African Americans I think that it is discrimination to them as females. This should not be tolerated and should never happen again.
ReplyDeleteComment By Kane Godfrey
While I can see Trent's point with the similarities with LeBron and the Williams sisters I have to respectfully disagree. Yes LeBron goes back to Cleveland but he only has to be at the arena for one day and a couple of hours. The sisters have to play for longer duration of times than LeBron and more times than not advance and have to spend a couple of days there. That could lead to overwhelming abuse that is not needed. Comment by Jared King.
ReplyDeleteAlso, tennis is typically played in a quiet environment where fans are expected to remain silent during points. That is not the type of atmosphere that is typical of a basketball game. Of course, fans have the right to express their displeasure, but I agree with Jared that it really got out of control, and someone should have stepped in to ask for quiet (as Kane suggested).
ReplyDeletePost by Nick Daverio
ReplyDeleteI agree with how the Williams sisters have played out this situation in boycotting the tournament since this has happened. They have every right to do so considering how the fans have reacted to the situation. I still firmly believe that the WTA needs to make a statement and apologize for how they handled the situation. Also the fans need to forgive the Williams sisters because it was not there fault and need to move on because they are only hurting themselves by not getting a chance to see them play at the tournament. I don't really believe you can compare this situation to LeBron because tennis is an individual sport whereas basketball is a team sport and because of that the LeBron deal affected more people on different levels then the Williams sisters did not have that large of an effect.
I appreciate everyone's comments on this issue. I want to echo what Nick said in his last comment: "I still firmly believe that the WTA needs to make a statement and apologize for how they handled the situation." I totally agree with Nick.
ReplyDelete