It was a miserable week for sportsmanship. And I wish I were only lamenting the lack of civility between opposing sides on Election Day referendum issues.

Scholar-athletes spent way too much time the last eight days scrawling the last three letters at the conclusion of the word “class.”

Think that makes me a prude? Congratulations! You’re the problem.

Let’s start at the University of Florida, where linebacker Brandon Spikes employed a maneuver on Georgia running back Washaun Ealey that likely made recently deceased professional wrestling manager Captain Lou Albano giddy in his grave.

Spikes would have been well served swapping surnames with former NFL fatso Jamie Nails for a day, in honor of how deftly he attempted to implant the jagged edges of his fingers into Ealey’s pupils.

If you haven’t seen the footage on ESPN, YouTube or The Daily Show by now, Spikes — who gutlessly by comparison wears a plastic shield to protect his own eyes — reached into Ealey’s facemask at the end of a play and raked the probe Bulldog’s rods and cones until they developed an identity crisis.

Florida coach Urban Meyer, with the Southeastern Conference’s inexplicable blessing, imposed the pointless suspension of a half-game against Vanderbilt. Three more days elapsed before Spikes himself, caving to public pressure from any person with a working brain cell count in double digits, announced that he would sit out the entire game.

What a trooper. 

Equally disturbing are the macho men, some of whom stood in their last huddle during the Eisenhower administration, who invoked the “it’s part of the game” defense. We don’t know the manner of misbehavior and indecency that go on at the bottom of a pigskin pile, we’re told. That, and we’re unqualified to pass judgment if we’ve never played the game at such a high level.

Funny. I’ve never injected myself with heroin, either, but I feel armed with ample evidence to declare it unhealthy for you or me.

If it’s little more than a baby step from a whistle on the field to what would be felonious assault on Park Street, the behavior in question probably isn’t part of the game.

That segues us neatly into the transgressions of Elizabeth Lambert, whom the prototypical sports fanatic couldn’t have picked from a lineup of Diana Taurasi, Kim Clijsters and Dennis Rodman in drag a week ago.

But now we’re either intrigued or incensed by Lambert, a University of New Mexico soccer player, for all the wrong reasons.

Lambert lost her mind in a Mountain West Conference playoff game. Cameras captured her unleashing a punch and a forearm shiver into the back of Brigham Young’s Carlee Payne. She also yanked an opponent to the ground by her ponytail and tripped another.

In an equally flagrant case of sexism, too many talking heads laughed off the behavior because Lambert is a woman. Imagine the outcry if Ron Artest or Rasheed Wallace had exhibited similar, um, defense in an NBA game.

The insanity carried over to our local high school fields, too.

I found myself wincing in pain Friday night when a local player was golf-carted off to the locker room for 10 minutes of recovery time after an opponent reared back and punched him in the ol’ family jewels.

No, I don’t mean inadvertently flailing or grabbing in an attempt to corral a fumbled ball. And I don’t mean gently prodding with an elbow to gain breathing room as an antidote for claustrophobia. I mean an upper cut.

The same defeated team was accused of showering the other side with spit once the game was out of hand.

Good stuff, huh?

It’s a reflection of the combative society we live in, one that desires the last word more than leaving a lasting impression. Sports rage, contrary to the romanticized version of events from yahoos who laced up the cleats when men allegedly were men, gets worse with each passing year.

No sport is immune, regardless of age bracket or gender. And no school is compelled to address the real problem until its disgraced player becomes a cable TV or internet sensation.

We pay lip service to sportsmanship. Problem is, I see school administrators more focused upon silencing relatively harmless chants from the student section than addressing the proliferation of trash talk on the field or court.

High schools don’t have the benefit of a dozen cameras perched at all corners of their stadiums. Their advantage, though, is being the adult authority.

Here’s my modest proposal: Next time you catch kids using tactics outside the rulebook or saying something you wouldn’t want their mothers or yours to hear, sit them. Indefinitely.

Maybe next time they’ll think before they speak, or spit, or swear, or punch, or pull hair.

You might even save them from becoming the poster child for stupidity when they get to college.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is [email protected].