Violence should be prosecuted

Consider a contrast in images, if you will. First, picture in your mind a high school football game; say it’s a long-standing rivalry between two teams. Bragging rights are at stake and the tension is high.

The young, pubescent athletes are all geared up, blocking and tackling each other, their helmets making a loud hollow popping noise as they collide with one another.

Now picture a large defensive player losing his cool, getting into a shoving match with a much smaller quarterback after the play is blown dead. The defenseman reaches out and grabs the quarterback’s facemask, ripping it off the quarterback’s head — then hits him over the head with it. What would your reaction be to that incident? What should it be, and how should the school districts handle the situation? Would the police be called in, an assault charge filed? Or should the school districts just, well, look the other way and handle it internally?

Now compare that hypothetical with what happened last Thursday night during the only nationally televised game of the night when Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett did that very thing to Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph: ripped Rudolph’s helmet off and hit him over the head with it.

What was the response, and what should it have been?

The response was that Garrett has been suspended indefinitely without pay, according to the National Football League, for “unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct rules, as well as fighting, removing the helmet of an opponent and using the helmet as a weapon.”

Both teams were fined $250,000.

Two other players involved in the melee were also sanctioned. Cleveland’s Larry Ogunjobi was suspended without pay for one game and fined for unnecessary roughness for “shoving an opposing player to the ground during an altercation.”

Pittsburgh’s Maurkice Pouncey was suspended for three games without pay for “fighting, including punching and kicking an opponent.”

And I thought I was going to watch a football game, not a street brawl.

The impressionable adolescents watching the game were no doubt impressed. I know at that age I would have been, going out the next day and talking with my buddies about how cool it was.

There are several things wrong with the response to the nationally televised brawl. First, hitting someone over the head with a weapon is assault with a deadly weapon and should be treated as such.

Local prosecutors should file assault charges against Garrett, and let the justice system deal with him, as it would anyone who attacked another person with a weapon, let alone one on TV.

Ditto for Pouncey and Ogunjobi, or any other professional sports player who lack the self-control to not assault another person on national television.

“I made a mistake, I lost my cool. I regret it,” Garrett was widely quoted after the incident.

A pathetic response at best.

Second, the NFL is not a state or country unto itself that can mete out justice arbitrarily. Fines and suspensions should be a minimum. However, Garrett should receive a life sentence — banishment from professional sports for life. An example, if you will, to demonstrate conduct that is completely unacceptable for anyone, but especially a so-called professional.

And as part of his sentencing Garrett should be required to talk to schools and college athletes about what not to do on the field.

Finally, all professional sports are populated by players with unique athletic ability. That ability should not be an excuse or get-out-of-jail-free card for bad behavior, let alone felonious acts.

In a world were violence is increasingly the response to the most petty of incidents and misunderstandings, sports is a venue where principles and values should be showcased and exemplified, rather than underscoring the growing brutality of the world around us.

After all, impressionable young athletes are watching.

Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].