Thoughts on this post?

[CAVPUT]

This in regards to the media backlash about Jordan Beck (baseball) flipping off the GA Tech fanbase last night. I’m posting it in the football forum because the majority of beatings Tennessee has taken over the last two decades have been football related.

I don’t agree with a lot of this post, I don’t think this should be encouraged, but I kind of see where the poster is coming from here given some of the ringer we’ve had to go through as Tennessee fans for a long time now.

Interested in others’ thoughts.

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Honestly, I won't argue with much of anything he said. I'm what many would consider an old fart/senior, but I'm damned sick and tired of UT being a whipping post for the SEC/NCAA while others seem to be untouchable. I don't care about public perception anymore. Don't care who we offend. For once in a long, long time we've got a big stick and we're good at using it. Just like this team...be who we are. Go Vols and to hell with everyone else.

 

[peaygolf]

 

[tennesseeduke]

He was in a slump. Got caught in the moment and made a mistake. I/we don’t know what the players or fans may have been saying to him to make him react that way. Make him take a lap around the field singing “I will not flip off the opposing team again”. End of story!

 

[Mccage]

He was trolling ESPN!

 

[volmanbill]

It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last.

 

[KnoxRealtorVOL]

Honestly, I won't argue with much of anything he said. I'm what many would consider an old fart/senior, but I'm damned sick and tired of UT being a whipping post for the SEC/NCAA while others seem to be untouchable. I don't care about public perception anymore. Don't care who we offend. For once in a long, long time we've got a big stick and we're good at using it. Just like this team...be who we are. Go Vols and to hell with everyone else.

This is a 5* post

 

[DaddyChad]

Honestly, I won't argue with much of anything he said. I'm what many would consider an old fart/senior, but I'm damned sick and tired of UT being a whipping post for the SEC/NCAA while others seem to be untouchable. I don't care about public perception anymore. Don't care who we offend. For once in a long, long time we've got a big stick and we're good at using it. Just like this team...be who we are. Go Vols and to hell with everyone else.

Pretty much. The media has instigated and instigated this agenda. It’s like a kid that picks on another over and over and once they get punched in the mouth they want to complain.

 

[OneVolNation]

If you don't want the big dog to maul you then you shouldn't keep poking it with the stick through the fence.

 

[24/7-GO VOLS]

Classless, trashy, and completely expected from this fanbase. That's my thoughts.

You can "care about winning" and have some moxy without flipping people off. It's pretty stupid to suggest someone can't. I don't know who wrote this but it's hard for me to not think they are pretty stupid.

no sir I wont sit down,, ,ilii

 

[NeverWe'llSever]

It's not just today... I've taken this stance before.

Then bye. ✌

 

[Ten_Titans]

I hadn't realized that we are going with the narrative that he was flipping off ESPN, and not the center fielder who was running down the ball.

I think that's silly. Don't just lie about what happened.

I don't really care. It doesn't get me up in my feelings.

I think the wisdom in sportsmanship is the realization that in sports... Sometimes you are the hammer and sometimes you are the nail. Play any sport long enough, you're gonna see plenty of both. And with the understanding that losing sucks way more than winning is fun, maybe have a little grace to your opponent with the hope that the next opponent to beat you will do the same.

And since that bridge is definitely burned... It is what it is. I'm sure when UT Baseball loses their next series, whenever that happens, the same fans applauding this will be there to cry about it when they tea bag homeplate and tear up the logo.

 

[turnuptheVOLtage]

Who cares just win

 

[mercuryvol]

If you need a definition of how to act in a baseball game when the crowd is against you watch Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron and Roger Maris.

 

[feathersax]

I wish it were that easy, trust me.

I guess you're one of those who agree that "What Beck did here was not only right but should be encouraged." If I'm a clown for disagreeing with that then paint my face and give me a red nose.

Not that extreme, but you might like this fellow.

 

[Chad F]

Didn’t like the bird flipping thing - and I believe that winning with class is important. Some internal team discipline is probably in order for that young man.

However, I hope that more attention is paid to the supposed professional broadcaster who publicly slandered a young man experiencing acute anxiety (and the entire UT baseball team) by repeating a complete fabrication on a live broadcast as if it were fact. I know the player and his family said they want to move on, but wow . . .

 

[unfrozencvmanvol]

I hadn't realized that we are going with the narrative that he was flipping off ESPN, and not the center fielder who was running down the ball.

I think that's silly. Don't just lie about what happened.

I don't really care. It doesn't get me up in my feelings.

I think the wisdom in sportsmanship is the realization that in sports... Sometimes you are the hammer and sometimes you are the nail. Play any sport long enough, you're gonna see plenty of both. And with the understanding that losing sucks way more than winning is fun, maybe have a little grace to your opponent with the hope that the next opponent to beat you will do the same.

And since that bridge is definitely burned... It is what it is. I'm sure when UT Baseball loses their next series, whenever that happens, the same fans applauding this will be there to cry about it when they tea bag homeplate and tear up the logo.

The circle of life.

 

[Iam4utalways]

Until I hear it from Beck if he did use the bird and who it was directed at, I’m going to figure he wasn’t flipping the bird and was giving the the center fielder the business for playing so shallow allowing him to hit it over his head.

In the Godless ways of the world today, there are way too many acting like they care that really don’t, if it even happened.

As for parents that don’t want there kids going around flipping folks off, I’m right there with you, if it even happened.

It’s on the parent to use this as a teaching moment and explain to the little ones all about the bird.

Just because our fans aren’t going around poisoning trees doesn’t mean there aren’t times that we show less class than others fans.

 

[Firebirdparts]

Honestly, I would just say you don't win an award for being an *******. That's what I would say. Some people see it differently. Society has become a LOT more narcissistic and frankly crazy in my lifetime. A lot more. People like living in hell, and there's really nobody out there saying "hey, let's live well".

So anyway, trash is trash, no matter how many times you say "oh the other guys are trash too". That doesn't do it for me.

I always wanted to live well. I found that in my own life, even that drives people crazy if they're in the right place. My ability to just be happy made my wife furious and crazy. She got over it, but it sure took a long time.

So my advice is, if you have a choice between living well and whining on the internet about "oh boo hoo everybody says we're trashy" then choose live well. That's a super easy choice for me. I would just live well. if somebody paid me $1000 an hour to be an *******, I would consider it, but they're not. You win nothing.

 

[WBO]

Personally I say let them talk. We've been a pretty easy target the last 15 years. Hamilton fires Fulmer and hires Kiffin, then he fires Delmonico and it takes us 10 years to find a great replacement. Then there's Donnie Tyndall and the administration's lack of support for Bruce.. Oh and don't forget the track team. In the 70's and 80's it was a premier program, now it's just another team.

We've been in the woods for a while. Looks like we're turning it around across the board, but quit worrying about what people say.

 

[beamerman]

As a general rule, it is both possible and desirable to have some class in life, whatever you're doing. Playing sports, working, at a party with friends, or at the mall. Always better to be polite and respectful.

Having said that, 20-year-olds are gonna 20-year-old. I flipped a ton of birds earlier in life, as well as shot dozens of moons and other less-than-classy stunts. *shrug* it's all a part of growing up for a significant segment of the population.

For the folks saying our players should do stuff like this all the time, or that antics like this are an important part of baseball: No. They aren't. Stuff happens, but it doesn't make anyone a better ball player. There are tons of ways to make baseball more fun without the birds and FUs. The coats and hands-over-eyes poses are good examples of good-natured fun. The lads on this squad are full of fun. They don't need birds for that.

For the folks saying he should be punished, come on. It was a bird finger, not capital murder. Let's have a sense of perspective here. A "don't do that" from the coach is more than enough.

For those (like that post the OP linked) who think there's some massive anti-Tennessee crusade going on by the world at large: please come back to reality. We get no more or less grief than any other program.

And for all the folks who understand that the middle ground is the right place to be on this kind of issue, good on you. You have a decent head on your shoulders.

Go Vols! Win super-regionals!

Good points. Here’s a perspective. Does anyone know if the GT fans there had been on him or heckling or etc? I remember being in right field at the WS in Cincy and the fans were brutal on Jose Canseco. He hit a homer to put his team up and when he came back out to play turned and bowed and then turned away in triumph saying, “who’s your daddy now?” These guys are emotional and 20 and highly competitive and it just appeared to be a release and a “who’s your daddy now” moment. Time to move on and win the WS.

 

[GUNTERSVOL]

Not going to indict our entire fan base. Every fan base has some ignorant rubes including ours. But there is no question one can win with class. (Act like you’ve been there before even if you haven’t.) I don’t even mind a little hot dogging and the homer coat. But Georgia Tech played its butt off and didn’t deserve a middle finger. If Vitello handles it, I’m good with it. But regardless of what the coach does, you can bet your rear end that there would have been a discussion if Beck was my son. In the heat of the moment or not, it was a classless gesture and he should apologize for it. My parents taught me that class is class and trash is trash and that’s what I drilled into my kids. Take your pick which one you want to be because that’s what folks will remember you for.

How much research have you done to make such a statement? Until the target of his finger is defined and we can know whether he initiated the classless act or was simply responding to one or more classless actions by the other team or fanbase it is pretty classless to make such a statement, guessing you missed that lesson with your parents.

Does it not seem odd that this is an isolated action on his part or he selected this time to do something unprovoked? If the umps let previous unsportsmanlike acts slide under boys will be boys doctrines then they own part of this as well. Don't have a clue if the motivation will ever be explained but it is relevant and necessary to any argument and especially condemnation of anyone on the field, especially unqualified condemnation.

 

[ZZ13]

So I was a sports junkie my entire life from the mid 60s on. Around early 2000s I lost interest in baseball. I haven’t watched a single inning in 20 years. Yesterday I watched the full highlights of the game. I hadn’t realized how much “showmanship” is in the game now. Just about every player did very detailed and thorough “celebration” after every little success. Pounding their chest, screaming to the gods, etc. I guess this is now required by the sport to stimulate new fan interest. If that’s the case, then any hand gesture just seems to fit into that celebration bucket.

 

[Jax_Vol]

Potential distraction.

Let's just turn out the noise, and focus on beating the snot out of the green, potato farmers.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

So I was a sports junkie my entire life from the mid 60s on. Around early 2000s I lost interest in baseball. I haven’t watched a single inning in 20 years. Yesterday I watched the full highlights of the game. I hadn’t realized how much “showmanship” is in the game now. Just about every player did very detailed and thorough “celebration” after every little success. Pounding their chest, screaming to the gods, etc. I guess this is now required by the sport to stimulate new fan interest. If that’s the case, then any hand gesture just seems to fit into that celebration bucket.

I don't think this is anything new. It seems more to be a feature of teams who get along really well.

We all develop little rituals. Some invisible to others, some right out there. Sign of the cross, fist pump, head down for a second, fingers crossed, the orange socks on Saturdays, whatever it is. Everyone has something. Some have many somethings.

But collective rituals seem to develop most easily among groups who get along uncommonly well. Who are tight. Like the 2022 BaseVols. They have made themselves into a brotherhood, and have developed a whole family of rituals involving hats, and fur coats, and falling to one's knees, and hands over the eyes, and all kinds of stuff. That's them.

I wouldn't say that's new in the 2020s. I've been on teams and in units that developed rituals, from all the way back to the 1970s. It's probably thousands of years older than that, as old as teamwork itself.

It's just really evident with these lads. Because they're a team in the purest sense of the word. More than most.

Go Vols!

 

[bpalmer28]

Not that extreme, but you might like this fellow.

I was thinking something more along the lines of Liberty or Belmont, but that might work.