Griner’s suspension fails to pack a punch
Baylor University’s 6-foot-8-inch freshman women’s basketball star Brittney Griner’s short but All-American career has been dealt a black eye for punching Texas Tech University’s Jordan Barncastle in a Big 12 Conference game.
Griner’s haymaker landed on Barncastle’s nose during the second half of their second meeting of the season. The punch, prompted by a hard foul by Barncastle, left Barncastle with a broken nose and Griner with a two-game suspension.
The incident has also garnered Griner some increased public attention and a media frenzy to endure. She already had some because her height, her shot-blocking ability and her in-game dunks.
The Big 12 has announced support of the suspension, saying it promotes good sportsmanship.
There is certainly nothing sportsmanlike about Griner’s actions, but there is also no sportsmanship or fairness in a meager two-game suspension for throwing a punch at an opponent that broke her nose.
A lot of writers and members of the press that cover sports are putting this on the level of Kermit Washington’s infamous punch that he landed at mid-court on Rudy Tomjanovich.
A better comparison is a situation that was mentioned in my column at the start of the college football season last year. After losing the opening game of the season, LeGarette Blount, an Oregon University running back, hit an opponent after the player slapped Blount on the shoulder and made remarks towards him. This situation was between two collegiate athletes where one player was provoked into an action and the player hit never saw it coming.
In the same way, Griner was provoked by a hard foul and then lashed out with a swing that Barncastle never expected.
The difference between these two instances came in what happened after.First-year coach at Oregon, Chip Kelly, suspended Blount indefinitely. Baylor Head Coach Kim Mulkey, however, only suspended Griner two games, one more than the mandatory suspension required by the NCAA.
Kelly came down hard on a star player during his senior season to send a message. He then allowed Blount to earn his way back on to the field after missing 10 games. Mulkey instead decided her star player should only miss two games, the final regular season game and the opening game of the Big 12 tournament.
Mulkey, who won a national title as a player and a coach as well as a gold medal, knows better and should send a message to her young player that responding to rough fouls in this way is not acceptable in sports. Instead, she taught her player that she’s too important to the team to be missed for too long.
Griner, one of the tallest players in women’s basketball today, needs to be ready to be fouled hard consistently throughout her entire career.
Mulkey should have sent a message to her star player that no matter who you are, fighting in sports is bad for the player, bad for the team and bad for the sport.
The Hilltop Views’ column, ‘Bench Warming,’ appears every other week in the sports section and is written by Co-Editor-In-Chief Bryce Bencivengo.
