There have already been more than 5,300 Division I basketball games played this year, and roughly 99.995% of them have ended uneventfully with the two teams exchanging handshakes. That’s not merely the tradition in college basketball, it’s an expectation that after 40 minutes of heated competition, every player, coach, manager and random bench-sitter will be mature enough to shake their opponents’ hand and congratulate them for a job well done.
The handshake line happens so routinely we don’t usually even notice it unless somebody breaks protocol. Every now and then, you’ll see a coach greet their counterpart with a dead fish handshake or a blow-by where you can practically see the “I hate you” thought bubble coming out of their head. On even rarer occasions, something will happen in a handshake line that escalates from passive-aggressiveness to a full-on incident.
Over the past few weeks, this unnecessary drama has manifested itself twice in high-profile situations. first was Michigan coach Juwan Howard’s confrontation with Wisconsin’s Greg Gard on Feb. 27, which turned into a semi-brawl and led to a five-game suspension for Howard. Then last weekend, Duke assistant Chris Carrawell just flat-out ignored the extended hand of North Carolina coach Hubert Davis after the Tar Heels pulled an upset in Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game.
These episodes have sparked a debate about whether college basketball should just get rid of the handshake line in order to reduce the risk of embarrassing hostilities that take attention away from the game.
Patrick Ewing, the Georgetown coach, told a radio station in Toronto that he’d prefer to get rid of it because “anything can happen to make things worse” after a heated battle. Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, on the other hand, pretty much suggested that eliminating the handshake line would be another indication of our society’s current direction.
“That, to me, would be the biggest farce, joke, ridiculous nature of anything I’ve ever heard of,” Izzo said. “We’ve already taught these poor 18-year-olds that when you’re told to go to class and you don’t like it, you can leave. We’ve already told these kids if you’re not happy you can do something else. We’ve already told these kids that it’s hard to hold them accountable, and now we’re going to tell them not to man up and walk down a line on someone who’s kicked your butt and have enough class to shake their hand is utterly ridiculous .”
Here you have two men — both of whom have spent their entire lives in basketball and achieved at the highest level possible — with completely different views on whether this little piece of convention they participate in is worthwhile. That, alone, suggests this is a relevant issue to discuss.
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What I’m wondering, though, is whether either of them are diagnosing the right disease or prescribing the right cure.
The handshake line, as it currently exists in college basketball, is so routine in nearly every case that it would be absurd to get rid of it because of one or two ugly incidents. At the same time, shaking hands after a game has become such a pro forma experience for most players and coaches that it does not necessarily accomplish much of anything.
Without understanding actual sportsmanship — and not just the flimsy representation of it in a handshake being done out of obligation — we might as well just end the practice and let players and coaches decide for themselves whether to leave the court immediately or mingle with their opponents.
This is the missing component to the conversation, and it’s one that has caught the attention of the Positive Coaching Alliance, a non-profit that aims to promote a positive youth sports culture through training and resources for coaches, parents and sports organizations.
Ruben Nieves, the PCA’s national director of training, was adamant that at the college level, where development of young people is still supposed to be a priority, a post-game handshake is both a good lesson and message to send about the nature of sports . But what’s often not properly conveyed to players is why. In that sense, it’s no different than teaching a player the purpose of setting a certain kind of screen or how to run a fast break: It has to be coached.
“It doesn’t help determine who wins or loses, but it’s part of the sport,” Nieves said. “If you’re going to be a complete coach, let’s be a complete coach. Teach, coach the significance of the postgame handshake and how to do it in a mindful way where it’s not just meaningless.”
This, Nieves said, can even involve something as specific as what words to say to an opponent in a handshake line. For example, a player on the winning team saying “good game” might come across as condescending if the other person feels they did not play a good game. Instead, Nieves might suggest “thank you” as a starting point because that is the essence of what it’s supposed to mean to be in an athletic competition against someone.
“I’ve seen professional boxers and MMA fighters who beat the heck out of each other and are nasty with each other and are trying to knock the other person out,” Nieves said. “And yet they have the ability afterwards to not only shake hands but to embrace each other (and understand), ‘You’re like me, you want to be great you want to compete and give your opponent all you’ve got and you love this sport just like me, and thank you for being here in the octagonal with me.’ We’re capable of doing that.”
The conversations that have happened subsequent to the Howard incident have only exposed how little the true meaning of sportsmanship is understood or discussed. In that sense, the divergent perspectives of Ewing and Izzo are both wrong because they’re focusing on the outcome, not how to make it important to the people involved.
If coaches can do that, handshake lines aren’t just worth having, they can be strikingly important as a visual representation of true sportsmanship for every young person who aspires to play at the college level. But if it’s merely a perfunctory act that doesn’t matter to anyone involved until it goes wrong, there’s no need to keep it as a tradition.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism