Unnecessary Roughness

If you follow NCAA Division I FBS college football, you very likely know that one week ago the Michigan State University Spartans defeated the University of Wisconsin Badgers on a 44-yard touchdown pass that wide receiver Keith Nichol caught off a tip and barely squeaked over the end zone line as time expired.

You may also know that the Spartans’ success in the game has been partially attributed to the fact that the team did not receive a single penalty for the entire game.

You may also know that the penalty-free performance directly followed a game against the University of Michigan in which the Spartans, though victorious, were penalized thirteen times for 124 yards. In one of the penalty-inducing incidents in the MSU-UM game, defensive end William Gholston punched a UM player—an action that would eventually lead to Gholston’s suspension by the Big Ten Conference for the MSU-UW game.

You may also have heard that the defense coordinator of the Spartans, Pat Narduzzi, was quoted after the MSU-UM game as saying “That’s what we tried to do, 60 minutes of unnecessary roughness. Just glad it didn’t get called every snap.” As this story (among others) reports, Narduzzi was later admonished by MSU Athletics Director Mark Hollis, who said in a statement, “There’s no question that Coach Narduzzi was caught up in the emotion of the moment; however, that doesn’t excuse him from being accountable for his statements. Needless to say, Pat chose his words poorly, and he expressed his regret over making those comments to our local media following practice earlier this week.”

Yet, there’s one additional connection that I think bears recognition amid this series of events.

Back in July, Mike Butterworth wrote on the Agon about the men’s basketball game scheduled to be held on November 11 on an aircraft carrier and feature the squads from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Michigan State University. While plans for the game have been in the works for some time, this summer it was announced that the game would be played on the USS Carl Vinson, which was the aircraft carrier that carried Osama bin Laden’s body after his death during a U.S. military operation this past spring. Reports have also noted that having a game on an aircraft carrier was the idea of MSU Athletics Director Mark Hollis. Meanwhile, more recently it was reported that President Barack Obama has been invited and will be in attendance for the game and even more recently that the two teams will wear camouflage uniforms for the event.

As Mike discussed in his post in July, and as I echoed elsewhere, there are some important reasons to be concerned about use of the USS Carl Vinson for this basketball game. I have voiced those concerns to Morale Entertainment, which is the organization that is helping to coordinate the event. I have also voiced those concerns to Mark Hollis. While I did receive a response from Morale Entertainment, Hollis has never responded to me.

In his comments about Narduzzi, Hollis offers the sentiment that individuals ought to be accountable for the statements they make. In the case of Narduzzi that statement took the form of something Narduzzi said, though statements can also be made by something one does. With that in mind, I would ask if Hollis is really committed to such accountability. After all, the ideologies promoted at the top of an organization set precedents for the rest of the organization. And so when MSU’s Athletics Director helps develop and promote an event that can so easily be considered a kind of unnecessary symbolic violence – perhaps metaphorically akin to a late hit after a football play has ended – as using the ship that carried bin Laden’s body to host a basketball game to celebrate the U.S. military, isn’t it a bit insincere for him to then admonish employees like Narduzzi for advocating a strategy of unnecessary roughness on the football field?