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October 5, 2009

Turn loose the celebrations!

Quincy Alexander

By Quincy Alexander / for the Times-Tribune

(Whistle sound.) Personal foul, on the offense, 15 yard penalty. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Are you getting where I'm going with this? The title, the whole referee’s call in text thing? Okay good.

Where have all the celebrations gone? I don't understand why we have allowed this to happen. Isn't this the land of the free?

On Saturday LSU's winning drive was set up because the brilliant wide receiver AJ Green scored the go ahead touchdown and wanted to — what? Jump up and down with his teammates? How dare he? The ensuing, longer kickoff put the Tigers in position to score a go ahead touchdown of their own.

Now, I want to be clear. If T.O. (Terrell Owens) pulls out a sharpie, Joe Horn brings out a pre-hidden cell phone or (Chad) OchoCinco puts on a ridiculous Hall of Fame jacket — yes, flag them, fine them even. This nonsense of throwing the horrid yellow cloth anytime someone doesn't pull a Barry Sanders and politely hand the ball back to the ref is beyond insanity.

The whole “act like you've done it before” argument is worn out.Yeah, in the “No Fun League” maybe there should be restraint on a majority of the touchdowns, but the game winning catch in the Super Bowl?

Santonio Holmes shouldn't have to wait until the official isn't looking to use the ball for his Kevin Garnett/LeBron James impression. And yes, the officials said if they had seen it they would have thrown the flag.

What about the kids at the high school level? Dominique Hayden of LCA is fast approaching the state record in touchdowns, but against one of the Eagles’ biggest rivals he handed the ball to the ref on both of his TDs.

I don’t know for sure and that may be his temperament, but I think he did it because he has Xanthophobia (the fear of yellow.)

So, we have to settle for the same ole hip-to-hip jumping, kind of a whole body high five thing because for some reason that isn't deemed as excessive celebration.

Why can’t we get back to the choreographed brilliance of yesteryear?

Can't we just let the athletes celebrate what they’re good at. I mean as long as it’s not like when Peter did “Shipoopi” after scoring a TD for the Patriots on “Family Guy.”

Isn't the act of celebration a product of what we have made the game to be with all the cameras and media coverage? Do you think Jim Thorpe danced around? When you play flag football does a guy pull out a sharpie and sign your flag? No.

We wanted entertainment. They get scholarships and insane salaries to entertain, let's let them do what we asked of them and for the high school kids — let’s let them enjoy playing the game.

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