The caricature of ourselves is not always a pretty picture

We all tend to become caricatures of ourselves as time goes on. People go with the personality traits that make them successful or popular, sometimes taking things to the next level and going too far. You see this with entertainment figures and comediens all the time, and coaches like Abe Lemons took his humor to the extreme so that now he's remembered for that, rather than his coaching ability. Some coaches such as Woody Hayes, Bob Knight, and now John Chaney with his latest incident they, cross that line between passionate and intense to out of control. It doesn't make them bad people, but it does tend to erase (or at least cloud) all of the good that they do.

It is just as hard for people to define the line between "fan" and "fanatic". I'm a Laker fan, but I'm a basketball fan first. So right now I don't like them so much. I don't think that is "jumping on and off the bandwagon" it is simply enjoying and respecting a good basketball team and organization. When a team, or an individual, steps outside the boundaries of what sports, team, and competition is all about, that's when we need to speak out and be heard in an attempt to make things right.It's hard to look past our feelings of friendship(or being a fan) to realize when something is wrong. But, we would do that with our teams vthat we are coaching. Or our children that we are raising. We would not allow slippage, but rather we would scold and reinstruct so that it doesn't happen again. Blind support does not always work. Sometimes you need tough love. But , not too tough .