Yeah, that's why they booed Hinkle. I guess those fans show up and block the view in Portland before every Courage game there.
I would say to Portland fans: lay off Hinkle. Your behavior is boorish. HInkle hasn't committed any crimes. She expressed an opinion. If Hinkle were a locker room lawyer or agitator and her behavior was damaging to the team or the league, I might change my view -- but there's no evidence that she is anything other than a good team mate.
I totally agree. Ironically, though, the ref was hit with the ball at least three times, thus interrupting the game's actual flow.
She is going to face booing pretty much everywhere she goes the rest of her career. And many of the people that doing the booing are doing so for very personal reasons. I certainly don't feel like I have any standing to tell them what to do or not to do. Their anger and frustration and fear and depression are/have been real. Hinkle is the lightning rod - of her own making. Let's remember she was an adult when she made those tweets. She was even more of an adult, one who had lived in the backlash to the tweets for several years, when she agreed to do the 700 Club interview that she was well aware would coincide with pride month when feelings would be at their highest. Hinkle has a right to do and say what she pleases, but so do the fans that boo her. As long as it is just booing, who really cares whether they continue or not? Booing has always been part of sports. Tobin Heath has reached the point where she is routinely booed in Cary. Sports teams and fanbases always have villains.
The ref is part of the field of play. They're not an active participant trying to get in the way. And for all the people talking about Mewis's goal - the longest replay I've seen has several passes and a recycling of the ball. At some point hitting the ref no longer impacts play. And even then Chicago was still losing 1-0 on a goal that had no referee involvement.
I think I heard it in a referee class... for a ref, if you don't get hit by a ball at least once, you are not close enough to the action to call the game, if you get hit too many times, you don't position yourself correctly .
Oh, I wasn't trying to imply that the ref was at fault for being in the way, or that the Mewis goal was a result of that prior sequence. I just found it humorous to think that he let the game flow in that he didn't call too many fouls, but that he also (yes, inadvertently) quite literally stopped the ball's movement on more than one occasion.
I did my Grade 8 class this summer. Instructor said pretty much the same thing. You're going to get hit.
Just out of curiosity: since this thread is called "the semis", are we going to keep the discussion here, or someone is going to open another thread for the final? (Of course, so far most of the discussion here has been indeed about the semi-finals and their aftermath, and the title-match has been covered just tangentially, so at the moment everything feels ok: I was just projecting in the next days leading to the final).
I agree. Refs getting hit, except by a fluke or a very fast play should be quite rare. However the ref in this game did not try to interfere with the play he just was poorly positioned and/or too slow to react and could not get out of the way once he was even looking right at the ball coming from over 30 yards away and stepped right into the path of the ball The fact that the ball fell favorably to NC was not through any intention but it was just an unfortunate accident. But it was an accident that resulted from the ref's mistake. In this game at least twice the ref saw the ball early enough to move out of the way but he failed to avoid the ball and got hit. It was not malice rather it was a lack of concentration on the game. There were many other missed or inaccurate calls that showed that the ref had a very bad game. The only thing good about the ref was that no bias was shown. Once as a coach I was warned strongly by a ref when I called out, "Hey ref, its a good game, why don't you watch it?" This is another case where the ref seemed, often, to be watching a completely different game from the one that was being played.
Since Cliveworshipper was at the game and saw how the boo-ing began, I take his word that there were a group with Hinkle shirts on standing up in front of other fans and blocking their view. We weren't in the immediate area but were sitting nearby, perhaps a section and a half away, but that description fits with what happened. At first there was a very small group boo-ing, and over the course of the game it built up. My guess is that the group with Hinkle shirts standing up and blocking other fans' views was engaged in a deliberate provocation. That's a favorite alt right tactic, and we have plenty of alt righters out here in Portland. Unfortunately, the initial boo-ers played right into the provocation tactic and made themselves look like boors (correctly) and others who had no idea how it all started joined in. Bad conduct provoked + social division created = win for the alt right.
Why am I not surprised. I just don't get why alt right people are putting in the effort and doing provocation tactics at a freaking women's soccer match. I'll double check google, but did the booing end up getting negative media coverage?
Certainly not during the broadcast. The commentators seemed to make nothing out of it more than a joke. Also I do not find the "instigators" theory creditable. The idiots with the T-shirts may well have been there and behaved exactly as described but that does not excuse the crowd's bullying of a player just because they did not like her politics. No matter how wrong she was in her views and postings it does NOT excuse the bad behavior of those who booed. If they really want to protest they should withhold their money and stay home. BTW: There is NO right of protest in the constitution or elsewhere if the object of the protest is an individual. We have the right to protest the government and we have, within reason, the right of free speech but we do not have the right to bully anyone public or private. I could but the crowd's actions if they were chanting about the position they supported but simply booing is not an exercise of free speech it is bullying.
Sorry, but you're doubly wrong. The "instigators theory" is exactly what you described happening. It got others to engage in the conduct you condemn. Their mission was accomplished. That's exactly what my post said. And, there is a right of "speech only" protest in the Constitution, even if the object of the protest is an individual. It's called Free Speech under the First Amendment. It includes boo-ing an individual. (I'm a retired attorney who did a significant bunch of Free Speech work.) The idea that severely criticizing someone, with words only, does not come under Free Speech protections is an invention of the Alt Left.
Two wrongs do not make a right and bullying, ie. booing in this case, is not free speech that is the first amendment does not apply in this case. Of course the courts are the only arbitrator of cases like this and the cowardly behavior of those that booed and those that instigated the booing will never be placed before the courts. I wish it would be as I dislike the actions of attacking a person just because they are on a side of an argument that is disagreed with. Attacking the ideas with reason and even vehemence is OK BUT attacking the person is not. Personal attacks are just the tools of bullies who have neither the character or the intelligence to make a valid argument on the merits of the argument.
I understand your position on the booing and agree with it. But when it comes to the First Amendment, you're just plain wrong. You seem to know what you're talking about when it comes to soccer. When it comes to First Amendment law, you don't. Give the First Amendment issue a rest and stick to your good moral argument about the booing.
So you have several thousand people acting aggressively, in concert, towards a young woman based on her faith-based public statements, while performing her job in her place of employment. Hostile work environment, perhaps?
Having an entire stadium booing you is not a "hostile work environment" in the sense you're trying to spin it. Sports, at its essence, is all about tribalism, and having one generic sound thrown at you from the throngs is an everyday phenomenon for athletes when they're not in front of home fans. Of particular note, I would say that an athlete's "work environment" is the day-in-day-out training they do, and the actual games are essentially just performance - i.e. compare it to a cast of people rehearsing for a play, or something to that effect. Now, if fans started throwing specific taunts and jeers at a player due to anything personal that he or she does not have control over, that's another issue. But a boo is not a taunt or a jeer. It's a wordless and very generic signal of disapproval. You're right that a player shouldn't be targeted for being X religion. But there's a big difference between, on one hand, practicing a religion and, on the other hand, doing a mass broadcast saying that you don't want to recognize an entire sector of the population because you think that's what you think your religion says about them. That's a very conscious choice that you didn't have to make. There's a little thing I like referring to called the "paradox of tolerance". It's a good philosophical nugget to know.
Actually I at least would be as strongly expressing distaste of that bad behavior. I strongly dislike all forms of bullying no matter if it is directed at a child or a man or a woman. Bullying is wrong regardless of who it is directed at. I do not even think it is right when fans at much more aggressive sports, like hockey, boo because they dislike a given player for their play. I find it distasteful to see players like P.K. Subban booed every time they touch the puck at some hockey arenas. It has become part of the game but it is wrong and it just shows that the fans doing the booing are of low morals and cowardly and not people that can be taken seriously. It is simply mob mentality. They behave in a group MUCH worse than they every would as an individual. The game and the play on the field is what sport is all about and booing a player just exposes the people who boo as the ones undeserving of respect.
I don't agree. When Press came to Houston to play her first game, we booed her every time she touched the ball and I think it was justifiable, she showed her disdain for our city, maybe she has her right but we also have a point we want to make. Same with Hinkle.