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Crossing the line
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Published: September 10, 2009
An University of Oregon football player who punched an opponent following the season-opening game last weekend has been suspended for the season.
That's a fitting punishment.
When a local high school soccer player too a swing at an opposing player after a recent match, he deserved similar consequences.
Student-athletes who violate the basic tenets of sportsmanship before, during or after games embarrass themselves, their teammates and their schools.
Playing sports at any level, starting in middle school, is a privilege.
Local student-athletes should be told from day one that there is no place in sports for fighting, that any player who engages in such unsportsmanlike conduct will be removed from the team. Period.
If this was the official policy of the Iredell-Statesville Schools Board of Education, we're confident there would be fewer on-the-field problems.
And fewer articles in the sports pages of the local newspaper naming the student-athletes who crossed the line.
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