Warriors as losers -- ugly side of sports C.W. Nevius Thursday, May 17, 2007 The Golden State Warriors had it all going for them. And thousands of Bay Area fans, drawn to the team's plucky, go-go style, had jumped on the bandwagon. Then, just as quickly, the team lost many of them Tuesday night in a game full of cheap shots, temper tantrums and ugly fouls. It wasn't just that we wanted to cheer for them. We wanted to admire the way they handled themselves. "It was cheesy," "Big" Rick Stuart, a DJ at FM radio station KFOG, told me. "I mean, I went to Alameda and bought a 'We Believe' T-shirt; I was totally on board. But honestly, I couldn't even root for them at the end of the game." Don Nelson's team lost the game, and the second-round playoff series, to the Utah Jazz. But more than that, the players lost respect as a result of their rough, chippy play, particularly late in the fourth quarter with the game still close. It's that old debate that we've heard so many times. What's the obligation for our professional athletes? Is it to dunk, run and nail three-pointers, or is it to be a role model for their fans? Do we forgive them for what we see as bad behavior because they are such good athletes? Or do we hold them to the standard that the rest of us would like to think we live? "I understand that a lot of these guys come from rough backgrounds," said Lou Covey, director of Vitalcom, a Redwood City public relations firm, "but seeing that, I'm pretty much done with professional basketball." Judging from the buzz on the street, in offices and at schools on Wednesday, the Warriors have some explaining to do for their fans. Temperamental but talented forward Stephen Jackson got a pass for his behavior for much of the year. He had some blowups and was fined and criticized, but for the most part we talked about how he was "an emotional player." Some people said it was simply a function of how badly Jackson wanted to win. "That's Jackson," said Paul Stewart of Pleasanton, an elementary school PE teacher. "You've got to take the good with the bad. That's just kind of how he works." But when the 6-foot-8, 220-pound Jackson clobbered Utah's much smaller Dee Brown (6 feet, 183 pounds), it caused a collective wince in the Bay Area. And that wasn't the only one. Forward Matt Barnes clocked Utah guard Matt Harpring in the head as he went in for a layup. Star guard Baron Davis elbowed Derek Fisher in the head -- for the second game in a row. Tina Syer, an associate director with the Positive Coaching Alliance in Palo Alto, says the ugly way the Warriors behaved at the end of the game was the first thing her carpool partner mentioned when she opened the door Wednesday morning. "I was so excited about the Warriors," says Syer, who played field hockey at Stanford. "I'd been to a number of games this year and really liked the team. But by the second half (Tuesday night) I just wanted the game to be over. I was so disgusted with them I couldn't root for them anymore. And I couldn't believe I was saying that." Granted, not everyone felt that way. Pastry chef Robert Saguisag of San Leandro says he has been a Warriors fan "since the Cow Palace days" and figures the team's display Tuesday was all just a product of playing a tough team on its home floor. "Utah was getting away with so much," Saguisag said. "You know what Malcolm X said, 'By any means necessary.' " "It was just frustration," said longtime fan Angela Clabiorne of Hayward. "You know they weren't going to get the calls in Utah." Fine, says DJ Stuart, but in the final minutes of the game, after the outcome had been decided, the Warriors looked petulant and childish. The cornball concept of being a good sport isn't completely outdated evidently. "I'm not a new NBA fan," he said. "I had (partial) season tickets for years and years. I understand setting a tone. But in the fourth quarter of the last game, when it is over, you're not setting any tone. You're just making me ill." Syer, because of her role with the Positive Coaching Alliance, says she can't help but look at games like Tuesday's in terms of the example they set. The group has worked for years to get youth players, coaches and parents to "honor the game." This looked like a how-not-to-handle-defeat educational video. "Whether the players want to be or not," Syer says, "they are role models. The meltdown we saw was just a terrible example of honoring the game. Naturally, people are going to get frustrated playing sports, and it is more likely in a big game. But I think we all agree that we see the true character of a person in the tightest situation.'' Or, as Covey puts it, "I keep going back to that old saying: Sports don't build character, they reveal it." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/17/MNG4VPSJUB1.DTL --

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