A slap on the wrist

In this week's View from the Sidelines, I alluded to the fact that Terrelle Pryor and his Jeanette teammates were involved in an altercation after their game Saturday against North Catholic.

The WPIAL, the western arm of the PIAA, was going to make a ruling yesterday (Tuesday) about possible suspensions of players. Well, forget the suspensions, both schools got their wrists slapped.

Here is a story, I pulled off Penn Live:

Don Rebel The WPIAL Board of Control has handed out punishments to both the Jeannette Jayhawks and the North Catholic Trojans boys basketball teams Tuesday evening after a fight between the two teams took place outside the locker room at Hempfield High School following a PIAA quarter-finals state playoff game on Saturday. The penalties handed down did not include any individual suspensions.

Here is a rundown of the sanctions placed on the two schools following a hearing Tuesday in Moon Township:

• The coaches and players from both teams must attend anger-management classes by the end of the school year, and the head coaches Jim Nesser of Jeannette and David Long of North Catholic must attend a coaching education class.

• ALL of the athletic programs at Jeannette and North Catholic were placed on two years' probation. During that time, if ANY sports team is involved in a similar incident, the team will forfeit its rights to qualify for the WPIAL playoffs.

• The coaches, principals and athletic administrators at both schools were publicly censured.

• Jeannette and North Catholic must give the WPIAL a written plan on how athletic contests will be managed in order to ensure a similar incident won't happen again.

With no suspensions levied by the WPIAL, the Jayhawks will be at full force for their PIAA Class AA Semifinals game Wednesday night against North East.

So, here are my comments:

• Since all the schools across the state are required to enforce sportsmanship, why do we spend so much time promoting sportsmanship and read those lengthy announcements before games, if this kind of stuff is allowed to go on.

• I harken back to a few years ago when Trinity and Sto-Rox got into a fight in the state finals and fans poured out of the stands. With those sportsmanship policies in place, why wasn't that game stopped and both teams forced to forfeit their medals?

If the sportsmanship policies of the Lancaster-Lebanon League, District 3 and the PIAA are to work, examples need to be made. Selective enforcement of the policy as I see it, just isn't the way to go.

We don't want to turn our teams, coaches and fans into robots watching games, but sooner or later, proper enforcement of rules has to take place.

So I ask again, why have these policies because there is hardly, if ever, any real discipline handed out.

We'll just keep slapping people on the wrist!