Pecher's Fight A Step Toward Parity With NHL
Last Wednesday, the Major Indoor Soccer League reached a benchmark of
sorts. Rowdy, boorish fans in Wichita's Kansas Coliseum succeeded in goading
Steve Pecher of the Steamers into a fight, resulting in Pecher's being
thrown out of a game that the Steamers, not entirely coincidentally,
lost to the Wichita Wings.
The loss eliminated the Steamers from the MISL playoffs, which had
some short-term importance to St. Louis fans. More important in the long
run, the MISL took a step on the road to parity with the National Hockey
League. Indoor soccer now has an incipient fan violence problem, just like
the NHL - and to a lesser degree, like major league baseball, pro football and
college and pro basketball.
So far, most major sports have shown little inclination toward swift
and sure punishment of violent vulgar fans. The moguls who run these
sports prefer to point out, accurately enough, that the vast majority of fans
behave very well. The strongest action most of the teams take is to wish the
rowdies would go away.
They haven't, and crowd violence has reached a stage at which it
is being studied as a serious sociologlcal problem. Two weeks ago,
at the University of Missouri-St. Louis' conference on "Sports in America,"
two scholars delivered papers on "soccer hooliganism."
It seems that in Great Britain, particularly among fans of London's
many First Division soccer teams, violence is completely out of hand.
Roving gangs of hoodlums, supposedly rooting for their neighborhood teams,
attend games specifically for the purpose of getting in fights. Usually
they fight among themselves, but if they can get hold of a player or referee,
they're happy to include him in the festivities.
The only positive thing to be said of London's "hooliganism" is that it has
taken the heat off South American soccer fans, who now can claim that
their own volatile fans - except for an occasional stampede - aren't as bad as
those in civilized London.
Another measure of the impact of any sociological phenomenon is
whether there has been a think-tank established to study it. In Miami, there
now exists an institution called the Center for Study of Crowd and
Spectator Behavior.
Irving Goldaber, the director of the center, told Sports Illustrated earlier
this year that he believes it is only a matter of time before some deranged
fan assassinates an athlete. "And when it happens once," he said, "there will be enormous publicity, and this will
trigger more of it."
John Cheffers, a professor of education at Boston University who has
studied crowd behavior, agreed with Goldaber's assessment. "Actually, it's
surprising it hasn't happened," he told
Sports Illustrated. "In this country, athletes are at least as celebrated as
are stars or politicians. There are a lot of Hinckleys out there who have strong
feelings about sport."
The Pecher incident last week brought all this to mind. Granted,
there's a long way between what happened to him in Wichita and what
Goldaber is talking about. But the MISL, with its emphasis on close
interaction between fans and players, runs the danger of promoting crowd
violence. But inasmuch as it's a relatively
young league, the MISL also has a unique opportunity to deal with this problem before it becomes
commonplace. It would also be very much in the league's own enlightened
self-interest.
Pecher, for example, is a highly intense player who likes to lead the fans
in cheering for the Steamers. He waves towels and exhorts the crowds at the
Checkerdome, and he has a reputation among referees as a troublemaker. In
the 1981-82 season, he set team career and season records for penalty minutes.
And although Pecher restrained himself this season, cutting his penalty
minutes nearly in half, Steamers Coach Dave Clements removed his captain's
responsibilities. The referees were leery of Pecher and hit him with
penalties for looking at them cross-eyed.
All of this goes over big in the Checkerdome, where Pecher is a home-grown
hero. But the act doesn't play well on the road, and it incensed the
folks in Wichita, just as similar antics by opponents incense the folks in St.
Louis.
The MISL encourages close involvement between players and fans,
and that's one reason the Steamers have been so successful. The flip side of
that is that it enrages fans in other cities - and some of them can't contain
their rage. That's why Pecher was slugged Wednesday night.
It happens all the time in hockey. So do fights in the stands, fights outside
the arenas and obscene chanting. This kind of thing turns a lot of people on,
but it turns more of them off. Some sports have decided to live with it, but I
doubt that the MISL - with its emphasis on "fun for the whole family" -can.
Pecher says that he's trying to tone his act down a bit but that it probably
will take two years before the refs recognize it. That's admirable, and the
MISL ought to make it league policy for all of its players. Who knows? Maybe
the "rest of the sports" can learn a few things.
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