Bad sports, good sports: Chip Kelly sends fan his money back

Posted on September 28th, 2009 by Alan Spoll

Have you ever attended a sporting event and been thoroughly disgusted with the performance of your team? Sure you have. It’s happened to me many times. It’s a bad feeling, made worse by the fact that you likely spent a significant amount of money to attend. After tickets, parking, overpriced food and drinks, and possibly travel expenses, you are in the hole by a pretty good amount. If your team stinks up the joint, you might want someone to pay. Oregon Ducks fan Tony Seminary felt that way after he traveled to Boise to watch his team play Boise State, and wrote a letter to Oregon coach Chip Kelly about it. And Kelly paid.

Chip Kelly made a new fan in Seminary with that gesture, and bought himself a lot of goodwill with the team’s fanbase, I am guessing. The team’s dominating win this week over the 6th ranked California Golden Bears won’t hurt in that effort either. If the poor play from the previous week had continued, though, I wonder if Seminary and other Ducks fans would have quickly found the limit of what a $439 check will buy. Sports fans are, after all, an impatient bunch.

Of course, I have to imagine that Seminary never considered the possibility that he would actually receive a check from the team, let alone from the coach himself. I wonder if I can get Joe Paterno to pay me for the three hours I wasted watching that awful Penn State loss to Iowa on Saturday night.

Good sports, continued:

2) In a fantastic display of sportsmanship, Thamail Morgan completed his long kick return by kneeling down at the 5-yard line rather than scoring at the end of a blowout win. The other team had recently experienced a tragedy that took the life of one of its players. Rather than rubbing it in, Morgan took the opportunity to show that he and his teammates shared the pain the Yellville-Summit students were feeling. Well done.

3) Early in Sunday’s NASCAR race at Dover Motor Speedway, Joey Logano, a 19-year-old rookie driver, was bumped by Tony Stewart. His car veered down to the apron of the track, and then shot back up in front of traffic that was traveling over 160 miles per hour. He was hit by Reed Sorenson, causing his car to flip over. Since they were at the top of Dover’s high banked turns, gravity took over and Logano’s car flipped nine more times on its way down to the bottom of the track. In a testament to the safety modifications that NASCAR has made over the last ten years, Logano climbed out of the car and walked away unscathed.

Bad sports:

1) Robert Henson, a rookie linebacker with the Washington Redskins, ripped the team’s fans on his Twitter account last week after fans booed the team during their lackluster win over the St. Louis Rams. Sounds like a smart way to start your NFL career.

2) At the end of last week’s Purdue-Northern Illinois game, a player on Northern Illinois, Sean Progar, recovered a fumble and slid to end the game. Purdue offensive lineman Zach Reckman decided that he would punctuate the loss by jumping on Progar, forearm first. I guess he was absent the day they taught sportsmanship.

3) In my favorite story of the week, the Chicago Cubs experienced another one of those things that only seem to happen to them. During a home plate celebration after a go-ahead homerun, pitcher Angel Guzman knocked Derrek Lee, who had scored the tying run, out of the game by slapping him on the helmet, causing neck spasms. Only in Chicago.

Bad Sports, Good Sports appears every Monday

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Alan Spoll

Alan Spoll is a software quality assurance director from the suburbs of Philadelphia where he lives with his wonderful wife and children. He has spent his entire life as a passionate fan of the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Penn State. Recent Phillies success aside, you will understand his natural negativity. Follow me on Twitter - @DocAlan02