Gang signs a symptom of a problem for NBA (NFL)
by Bryce Martin

Higher-ups within the NBA (insert NFL at your discretion) think they detect players giving off gang signs during games and are studying ways to eliminate the practice.

First off, I find even the thought of this as both humorous and incredibly childish at the same time.

Black gang signs. Black gangs. Let's call it for what it is. Most of the players are black, nearly all who would be involved would have to be black. I image any whites who grew up gang-affiliated and who now draw big NBA bucks have no desire to return to the habits of the poor. Do you think leather-faced Okies (white, again) wanted to return to the ties that once bound them before turning to the fields of despair known as the Great Depression once they could regularly put food on their tables?

With the big NBA bucks, you would think they would want to eliminate the habits of their retrogressive juvenile days. Live in a mountain chalet in Colorado with a millionaire's view, buy a vineyard in Napa and start a winery, live along the coast in Malibu and cavort in beach house luxury. I seem to prefer the West, so imagine your own dream choices.

The black NBA players remind me of the lottery winners who win millions, enough for 36 people to live an opulent lifestyle for the next 70 years, and what do they plan to do now? Keep their $8.65 an hour job and maybe splurge on a new riding mower. Why did they even bother to enter in the first place?

The psychological part of all this may be complicated. That might be why the NBA people feel they need to deliberate long and hard to come up with some answers. Or it could be as simple as pie.

If I had started this out as a letter to the NBA on how to resolve the situation, it would have began thus:

The simple remedy -- Reward childish behavior with childish penalties. If a player is caught giving off a gang sign, immediately banish him to The Romper Room, sort of like the NHL penalty box, for a set length of time. Have that room on a side wall with a big glass viewing window for TV cameras and spectators. Have "The Romper Room" painted in large letters on the outside wall in a child-like scrawl. Show nothing but Woody Woodpecker cartoons on the room's lone TV set, with big plush and stuffed toy animals scattered about on the thick and colorful carpet adorned with kittycat characters.

After his time is up, he needs to turn in a small chalkboard where he has written his ABC's. Harsher penalties would follow in The Romper Room. Such as actually having to pass a quiz after watching an entire episode of Mr. Rogers, unless the game is over by then. Oh, and -- I know the union would fight this one -- they don't get paid while in The Romper Room. I would argue that they have violated certain portions of their contract regarding professionalism by using gang signs and that a no-pay penalty could be longer in duration and they need to count their blessings they got off this light, this time.

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