He Lost It
Maybe you saw this video from about 10 days ago. It’s video of a minor league hockey coach who goes ballistic on the referee about a bad call against one of his players. The coach is Jim Playfair, which is sort of ironic, considering. Be sure to watch the folks in the stands, as well as the players to the coach’s left laughing at him. Take a look.
If you can’t view the video, click HERE.
What’s amazing is that in our culture, this sort of behavior is glorified. Although collectively, we think things such as “what a crazy man” or “that guy’s goin’ nuts”, we watch it and continually let it happen. This particular video has been viewed over 555,000 times, and is merely one version of the incident. The fact that this coach lost his cool like this shows that he’s not virtuous in the area of prudence, temperance or justice. (A TrueMan is virtuous.) I wonder what would happen at my office if someone acted this way.
I watched a few videos discussing this outburst, and one that caught my attention was a radio personality that said, something to the effect of, “this is a coach expressing emotion. He’s defending his player, showing some emotion. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.” In fact, the radio guy went on to call it “great”, that this coach did what he did. Well, Mr. Smart-Radio-Personality-Guy, a TrueMan controls his emotions and doesn’t lash out like Mr. Playfair. This was not great.
TrueMan Up!
Completely losing one’s cool, getting violent and smashing hockey sticks while screaming at someone is certainly a viable threat. Sound’s like a job for a can of pepper spray.