Nearly 56 million Americans watched Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s now infamous rant, which took place Jan.19. As usual in today’s social media obsessed society, twitter went wild. One word in particular stood out to describe Sherman’s character: “Thug.” Before getting into what effect this word has, let’s first take a moment to understand how football fans act and react.

Sports are a huge part of American culture, and football is often seen as the most American of all, overtaking baseball in many households. Americans spend millions of dollars on tickets, player’s jerseys, team gear and other things to show their support. It’s almost become a ritual to gather with family to watch our favorite teams and, win or lose, we get emotional. We loathe the other team, giving them disrespectful nicknames when rivalries and its hatred grow. Without getting emotional about it, it’s unlikely the sport would make as big a profit as it does.

Now let’s move on to the player involved in this incident. Sherman is quickly becoming a controversial, divisive player, never holding his opinion back. Fans first began to nationally be aware of him after a Seahawks and Patriots game in 2012, when he went to find New England quarterback Tom Brady post game and talk trash. He would make the pro bowl that year. What many may not know is that he also attended and graduated from Stanford. That’s not quite what you would expect from a “thug”.

He certainly isn’t the first athlete to make his presence know for trash talking, as it is itself almost its own sport. Athletes such as Muhammad Ali and, more recently UFC fighter Chael Sonnen, are known almost as much for their talk as their athleticism.
Fans who called Sherman a “thug” should know that it reeks of racism. Other players who have had outbursts, such as former Chargers quarterback Ryan Leaf, who yelled at a reporter and had to be held back by a teammate, or Eli Manning who shoved his own teammate during a game weren’t labeled as such. Even Richard Incognito, who has been in the news for reportedly bullying and sending racist and homophobic texts to teammate Jonathon Martin, hasn’t received that type of treatment by fans. So the element of racism by labeling Sherman a thug cannot be ignored.

It is understandable to root against a trash talking player. The issue isn’t just with his comments towards 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree, but that it extended from after the game into the post-game interview. It makes him and his team looks bad especially after the game when his opponent can’t defend himself. However, a line must be drawn on how fans react.

Look, it is fine to dislike Sherman, as a fan of a rival team it’s actually expected. However to use a term as strong that is associated with criminals to describe a person because of trash talk, which never resorted to any slurs on his part, is just as unwanted.

This brings us back with the original point. Getting emotional over our teams isn’t going away for fans, so why do fans expect players to always be calm after big rivalry games? It’s partly why we love the game so much but it is important to not get carried away and realize this is entertainment.