The Need for Sportsmanship at WHS

When the word “sports” comes to mind, people usually equate it to rivalry and competition. With the high levels of competitiveness between bitter rivals, comes the darker element of sports which is trash talking. Trash talking is when one team tries to put down the other team by sometimes using racial slurs or inappropriate language. Trash talking is becoming a huge problem in professional and scholastic sports nationwide.

Here at Watertown High, trash talking has increasingly grown into a huge problem that Principal Watson feels needs to stop right away. Right before December break, Principal Watson and Athletic Director Mr. Lahiff held a brief meeting with all the winter athletes. During that meeting they talked about how trash talking is totally unnecessary. Watson started off by talking about the most recent boys’ basketball game, which was against Watertown’s rival, Belmont. “There was a horrible atmosphere at the boys’ basketball game on Friday. I wouldn’t have wanted to bring my kids to that game. That can’t be our image.” Principal Watson continued by saying that we represent Watertown, and that we have the name of the town on our hats, sweatshirts, and uniforms and when we trash talk, we are not setting a good image for our town.

He also stated that he knows trash talking happens before, during, and after the sporting events and can get the fans more amped up/ aggressive which could cause harm to others. Some athletes in the meeting started to refute Principal Watson’s points, saying that Watertown was only retaliating to the trash talk of other towns. Watson replied by saying that if you want to beat a team that’s fine, you can write something like “#beatbelmont” or “I want to beat Belmont” online, but when you say inappropriate things about a team, that’s the stuff he wants to stop and those are the type of comments he doesn’t want coming from this town and this school. He continued by saying that he knows other towns talk trash all the time, but we as a school need to “let things go.  If you throw things back, you are contributing to stupid things that will happen.”

He finished with saying that we don’t want people making fun of or putting down our schoolwork so why would that be different for our sports teams. “You don’t deserve people saying something about your test scores.” Watson set a goal for the athletes over the break, which was not to trash talk. He is extremely bothered by it and wants it to stop; therefore he wants to enforce the rule of an athlete being benched for a game if he or she trash talks. While some athletes were still asking questions of Watson, Watertown’s football coach, Mr. Cacace, immediately stepped in and said, “All this stuff that’s going on, needs to stop here. We need to be the better people. Yes, we have a high standard for Watertown, and if you don’t like that, then you should check yourself as a person. We need to act with some pride and respect for our community.”

Watson took over and said, “This is not a part of Watertown sports. You shouldn’t have to wonder what the fans will say to you in other towns, and they shouldn’t wonder what we’ll say to them.” Watson will be attending a Middlesex League meeting to try to alleviate this problem and possibly end it once and for all. Mr. Watson doesn’t want a single comment about other schools from here on out; he expects the same for other schools. Sports have many elements to it: competitiveness, rivalry, fan bases, etc. but the message of Watertown High School is that trash talking should not be one of them.