The Stomp Heard Round the World

Referee whistles hissed, fans booed, and men yelled and shoved each other all in the midst of a great Thanksgiving Day tradition: NFL Football. At the center of the conflict was Detroit's Ndamukong Suh, who had to be pulled off and restrained from one of Green Bay's linemen. Suh stood up, looked down at his fallen opponent, and stomped. It was only another example of competitive nature consuming an athlete.

For those actions, the Detroit Lions' defensive tackle, Ndamukong Suh, will be suspended for the next couple of NFL games (without pay) and fined by both the National Football League and the Detroit Lions. Suh was immediately ejected from the game, yet he glared at the referee and held his arms up as if he was a child who had just been caught eating a cookie before dinner, not a 300-pound man who had driven his cleats into Packer lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith.

These outbursts always seem to play a prominent role in sports. It's not unusual to tune into a professional sporting event and see a coach screaming the head off of a referee or umpire following a bad (or close) call or a pitcher intentionally hitting the next batter after letting up a crucial home run. The frustrations that erupt from the volcano of competition are tough to explain to anyone who has never seen or felt that sudden instinctual rage.

Rob Phillips, a senior on the Plymouth State University Wrestling team, is no stranger to the feeling. "It's a part of being an athlete. You feel that need to win and to compete at the highest level you can," he said. "When that doesn't happen, when things don't go your way, it can be very unsettling. I think that's why, when the really competitive athletes get angry, their temper goes," he snapped his fingers. "Like that."

Ndamukong Suh is not the first football player to lose their temper in a way that horrified spectators and fellow players alike. Defensive Linemen Albert Haynesworth lost his temper and displayed a more violent response than Suh in October of the 2006-2007 NFL season. As a member (at the time) of the Tennessee Titans, Haynesworth caused the Dallas Cowboys center Andre Gurode to lose his helmet in a play, leaving his head unprotected. Haynesworth responded to Gurode's vulnerability by stomping on his head. Haynesworth received both fines and a five-game suspension for the incident.

"In football you play with a sense of fury every play; it is a very emotional game," said senior Bobby Lombardo, a member of the Plymouth State Football team. "You try to control your emotions so that you are able to use them when you need them during the game." Playing a sport, especially one as aggressive as football, requires the ability to control the emotions that may rise out of you. Detroit's Ndamukong Suh will have to learn to control a temper that he has used to his advantage his entire career. While Lombardo may not understand what it's like to stomp on another opponent, he knows exactly where Suh, and other athlete's combative actions sprout from. "Sometimes, when you are in the middle of a play and you have been holding in frustration and anger all game, it only takes one little thing to set off that time bomb." Suh won't be able to afford many more time bombs going off, but the angry nature of some athletes are unlikely to change.