On Friday night in Pittsfield, I heard the Worst High School Sports Fan in Maine, and that has me thinking about etiquette.

I don’t know his name, but he was decked out in the purple and gold of Bucksport High School. The Golden Bucks were in Pittsfield to play football against Maine Central Institute. The host Huskies pulled away in the second half for a 35-20 win.

The Worst High School Sports Fan in Maine made himself known early. As MCI took its first drive down the field, he implored Bucksport players to hit MCI running back Jonathan Santiago on every play, whether or not Santiago had the ball. He yelled that taking a 15-yard penalty would be OK, if the result was Santiago leaving the game.

Let that wash over you for a second. A grown man advocated high school football players try to hurt an opponent.

The Worst High School Sports Fan in Maine was quiet for a while. But just when you could allow yourself to think that his first quarter shouts were just a reprehensible lapse of judgment and common sense, he did it again in the third quarter.

This time, a Bucksport player did get flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. The Worst High School Sports Fan in Maine lamented that the penalty didn’t come with an MCI injury.

The Worst High School Sports Fan in Maine seems like a caricature, a lame character in a bad movie about high school football. In the movie, an MCI player runs out of bounds and “accidentally” runs the Worst High School Sports Fan in Maine over, and everyone in the theater laughs at the comeuppance.

In real life, he’ll probably continue spewing his ignorance.

To be fair, the Worst High School Sports Fan in Maine was a lone voice of lunacy. Other fans voiced their displeasure with a few calls by the officials, but that’s standard, and nobody was out of line. Officials I know have told me they tune that stuff out, anyway. No Bucksport player or coach ever said anything out of line. Most fans cheered on the Golden Bucks the right way, urging them to hold their heads high as the final seconds ticked off the clock. They played hard, and these fans acknowledged that effort.

I go to a lot of games in a year, and I’m relieved to say the boorish behavior of the Worst High School Sports Fan in Maine is an extreme exception to the rule. Normally I see fans who are passionate and vocal, but they don’t cross the line. That makes me wonder, where should we draw the line?

Cheering for your team to injure an opponent crosses it, obviously. I can’t figure out how an adult would consider that appropriate behavior. Barking at officials? Well, it’s certainly not a show of top notch sportsmanship, as long as you’re not swearing and you don’t whine about every play, barking at the refs now and again is OK. Seconds after the first flag was thrown, somebody disagreed with the call, and like I said, refs tend to tune you out, anyway.

Heckling the opponent is best left to the students. If you’re an adult, you can find ways to cheer for your team without harassing the other guys, can’t you?

No matter what sports you watch, remember, these are students. They’re playing because it’s fun. Yelling for them to try and hurt somebody isn’t fun, it’s stupid, and if you’re old enough to cheer at all, you should know that.

Bucksport plays Mt. View next week. Be ready for an earful, Mustang fans.

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM