High School Tennis Heckling causes forfeit at state

RIP, Dickface.

 

It's pronounced fa-say!

 

Even worse, he only had one eye.

 

In real sports, somewhere around 6th grade every coach has to have a talk with some of their better players about hecklers:

"Shut 'em up. Serve the ace. Throw the strike. Kick the extra point. Make the free throw, wheel on your heels and walk off the court."

There is nothing sweeter than the silence of free-throw hecklers cut off in mid-scream.

 

This. Yahoo needed to go beyond warming over what was in the local paper and trying to put its own spin on it, but in the one time it's done something that occured in our area, that's exactly what they did.

 

I have heard of HS sports officials ordering that abusive spectators be removed -- up to and including complete gyms being cleared -- but never a championship match being moved in-progress.

 

If it was that bad, they should have halted the match, called the cops and have the "fans" removed.

 

Yep, bingo. It creates the horrible horrible precedent that any spectators unhappy with the location of a state tournament contest can simply create a disruption and get it moved.

If the spectators were being loud enough that their 'disruption' was audible to officials at courtside, bring in security and have 'em hauled out.

If they weren't being that loud, tell the delicate flower being heckled to suck it up and play it out.

 

1). When you play in college, the heckling you hear at high school games will be some of the nicest things you'll hear.
2). Don't the truly great players feed off it?

 

As in Dick Swett, the former N.H. congressman?

 

Wow. It does appear that Dick and Katrina Swett live in Bow, N.H., with their seven children.

 

One time I was covering a match in the state high school team tournament. The first singles match was between a senior who went on to play at Clemson and BU and a freshman who later played at Brown. The freshman's name was Heather. Early in the match it wasn't going so well for Heather's opponent. After every point, a group of fans behind their court yelled "Great shot, Heather! Great shot, Heather!"
Eventually, the senior turned to those fans and said "I missed the fucking shot. It's one thing if she's hitting winners, but can you cut it out with the 'Greater shot, Heathers?'"
Things like that kind of make tennis fun to cover. You see the personalities more than in a lot of other sports.