Tom Bergeron
Rivals High Senior Editor

The videos are telling. And troubling.

Girls in a Rhode Island high school soccer game were involved in an all-out brawl that would make even their male counterparts blush. And it surfaced after a video of a New Mexico women's soccer player became an Internet sensation for its stunning examples of poor sportsmanship, if not on-field violence.

Some see these incidents as just another example of a sports world out of control. Dan Lebowitz, the executive director for the center of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in Boston, sees it as a potential learning lesson.

"A lot of times people will sweep it under the rug and say it's where we are moving in our culture," he said.

He disagrees.

"This has to do with leadership and the code of ethics that our coaches set," he said. "Maybe we're not doing a good job at modeling behavior or setting ethical standards that need to be followed. That moves up and down the ladder."

Both on and off the field. The Rhode Island incident - between Woonsocket and Tolman - started on the field, but it made its way to the stands. Adults scuffled in the stands during the awards ceremony, no less.

Action has been swift. The University of New Mexico suspended Elizabeth Lambert indefinitely the day after the game. The incident happened in the school's final game of the year, but it is unclear if Lambert, a junior, will be allowed to return to the team next season.

Some say this is perhaps the only unfortunate part of Title IX. Girls are not only gaining only the positive aspects of sports but some of the negative ones, too.

Lebowitz said this negative can be made a positive.

"In all aspects of life there is a flipside or an underbelly," he said. "This (violence, poor sportsmanship) isn't something that wasn't going to happen.

"The question is: How do we respond to it? Is it something that is correctable? How do we change the culture of how we address athletes and what we accept as positive behavior?"

After the game in Rhode Island, Woonsocket head coach Kathleen Fagnant did not take full responsibility for her team's actions. "I'm not going to take the fall for that," she said in a WPRI report.

Lebowitz said punishments for these acts must be quick and harsh.

He feels the Internet - which may help increase these acts of unsportsmanlike conduct by showing them to the world - can also help prevent them.

"We live in a media world," he said. "If discipline is handed out in a harsh way, it would get around.

"Twenty-five years ago, no one outside of Rhode Island would have ever heard of this. Now it's known in 15 minutes. But there is a plus side. If we hand out strict discipline for these acts, that would get out, too. It would send a message that participation isn't a given. It isn't just a right that can't be challenged."

The Center for Sport in Society, now in its 25th year, hopes to be a leader in improving sports.

"Leadership in sport can move social justice along," he said. "You start by figuring out how to set up standards for coaches and setting certain policies for sportsmanship that must be followed."

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