I felt a number of different emotions when I first saw the video of Elizabeth Lambert from the University of New Mexico soccer match vs. BYU on November 5, 2009. If you have not seen it yet and you want to dial up your own emotional response to it, here you go:
I had a few people tease me in high school for playing “girls” sports like soccer and volleyball. While I haven’t seen a volleyball video quite like this before, perhaps the idea of soccer being a “soft” game, even for girls, may be closer to being exposed as quite false. While mostly tongue in cheek, it is a startlingly violent video.
Like many people, I was shocked and disgusted by how intentional Lambert’s actions were. Even though the video just shows highlights (lowlights?) from the match, and the tension of the game cannot be discerned from snippets of film out of context, it’s impossible to justify what she did as an acceptable part of the game. She has been suspended indefinitely, and many believe that she will not be considered for reinstatement to the team until she undergoes serious psychiatric analysis and treatment. In addition to her reputation as a soccer player, he may also lose her scholarship, and any hopes she had of playing professionally at another level.
Many people can relate to losing their cool and doing something regrettable in the heat of the moment. Unfortunately, many of us forget what we ourselves are capable of when we see such egregious acts of violence while personally being in a calm state of mind. Some people have called for Lambert to be expelled from school. Even others have wanted the police to investigate the hair pulling incident as an assault. She has even received an alarming number of date proposals from men who would like her to treat them as rough as she does her opponents on the pitch.
After two weeks of dealing with a cacophony of media pundits and Youtube commenters, Elizabeth finally granted an interview to the New York times today. Her tone varies from one of genuine remorse to explanatory pleading. 
The accompanying picture doesn’t exactly fit the thuggish girl from the video above. Although her video seems to show a pattern of dirty play, she has only received 2 yellow cards in her career at New Mexico, which has spanned over 2,500 minutes on the field. Maybe she did just have a bit of temporary insanity. Perhaps she should be given more benefit of the doubt.
In fact, the two weeks of time that have passed since this episode and today’s interview have given me a lot of time to think about my own screw ups and shortcomings. If I were defined by my weakest moments or known around the world by my greatest failures, I’m not sure if I would still be allowed my own web domain www.zacparsons.com. As it is, people know me by some mix of what I have shared with them, or what they have heard or seen themselves or second hand from others. Although I make sincere attempts to be transparent, I’m sure that many of my behavioral warts would lose me some friends and comrades if every detail of my life was known.
If what we know about someone is bad, is it fair to label him/her as a bad person? Do stories of shocking behavior expose someone’s true nature, or is it just a moment of weakness that happened to catch our attention? Do we poo-poo away our own moral failures as circumstantial, heat of the moment, “you would understand if you were in my shoes” types of events? Or even if we take responsibility for our actions, do we feel that we need to saddle ourselves with that burden on a daily or hourly basis to remind ourselves of how evil we really are?
Maybe the question I’m asking is: are we all really bad people who happen to do good things from time to time? Or are we all good people, who happen to do bad things from time to time? Or are some of us more inclined to be good and others of us to be bad? I believe that your answer to those questions has a lot do to with how you deal with others on a daily basis.
If you know that you need slack cut to you in order to enjoy life and the relationships around you, take a good look at how much slack you are cutting for others. Since our country doesn’t even trust Elizabeth Lambert to make the decision to imbibe alcohol (she’s only 20), maybe we should all help her to learn from this and work towards changing her nickname to something more fitting of a human being.
Tanner Hestand pushed me face first into the bleachers during a WHAM basketball game once… he turned out to be a pretty nice fellow…
To answer your question 99% of people, in my opinion, are good people who occasionally do bad things in the heat of the moment. Every once in awhile you meet someone who seems to be the wrong balance of immature and ignorant about life, and thus comes across as a bad seed.
This happens during sports all the time and I agree with her that its over-hyped because she’s a woman. People don’t like seeing these pretty girls act the fool, but its gonna happen. Yes she was way over the top but I feel this was not nearly on the level of the Florida’s Brandon Spikes trying to gouge another players eyes out. He got suspended for a half I believe. Double standard.
Sidenote: How much better would that interview been if when asked why she acted like that she had responded “I’ve been spending most my life living in a gangsta’s paradise” ?
Imbibe. Nice.
Um, I’m probably the last one who should comment on someone losing their cool during a soccer game (Or perhaps I’m actually the most qualified?) but her comments that were published today were so ridiculous that I felt compelled to post, so let me address those first:
I would agree with her that most of the plays, while physical, were pretty typical plays that happen in every soccer game.
One issue that I had was that the “apparent punch, which she said was inadvertant” was clearly intentional (1:13 in above video). To me, this destroys her credibility, and sort of sours me on the rest of what she had to say.
The other issue is the claim that people are treating her more harshly because of her gender. The things that she is being judged so harshly for had nothing to do with rough play, because they had nothing to do with soccer. Punching someone in the face is not rough play. Nor is ripping them to the ground by their hair. In her defense, she should have been thrown out of the game long before that incident occurred for her very reckless “tough, physical play.”
As far as the good versus evil aspect of the argument? I think that there are varying levels of good and bad people all around us. The most indicative actions of the nature of a person are those that take place when no one is watching, or when there is no negative consequence for an action. Elizabeth Lambert surely would’ve acted differently if she knew millions of people were going to see that video. However, I think what we saw on ESPN might be more true to her character. We’ve seen what she is willing to do to get something as trivial as a win in a soccer game, so what reason would anyone ever have to think that she is the person she claims to be in her interview?
Ben is right about the apparent punch, she was trying to knock that girl into next week. This girl has played roughly 27 NCAA soccer matches and this must be the first time she’s played this way or she would have been suspended long ago. She was obviously lying during the interview, but who wouldn’t? Whenever someone has to go in front of the nation and defend their crazy antics the P.R. people come out and tell them what to say and how to say it. I’m OK with her suspension but still feel its over the top because she is a woman. Isn’t LaGarrett Blount getting reinstated with very little uproar after sucker punching a BSU player (a video Ben will still get giddy about watching, as will I) after eight games?
I’m just saying it’s not that big of an offense…
@Matt VT – Oddly enough, I wondered the same thing about Gangsta’s Paradise. That song is going through my head on an hourly basis right now.
In your 99% vs. 1% statement, it still seems that the “bad” people somehow turn bad due to their environment, education, or lack thereof. This starts to delve into the nature vs. nurture argument. Do you believe that humans are born with the tabula rasa? Maybe a diversion off of the sports discussion, but I think how we view our own nature has everything to do how we “play” with others. On the field, and in the rest of life.
Yacob’s bicycle kick to the JBC player’s face is worse than what we saw in the video…
. I jest… I jest…
@Ben – The punch you mentioned is pretty hard to excuse. Clearly, she does not know the meaning of the word “inadvertent” or she has mistaken her own arm for someone else’s. When you issue a mea culpa, just own it all. I agree with your sentiments on souring much of the rest of what she had to say. I’m going to chalk it up to a mix of immaturity and misguided attempt to “de-monster” her reputation.
Would it be fair to say that your thoughts on good and evil mostly have to do with our perception of consequences? I guess my question back to you would be this: Do these consequences have to be real in some sort of natural or social sense, or do they just have to be perceived in order to discern the nature of someone’s goodness or evilness?
It is interesting to consider that we are who we are when we believe that no one is looking.
@Matt VT – I think that one of the main differences with respect to LaGarrett Blount’s situation is the fact that his offense was isolated to one act, and not a series of acts, like Lambert. Also, Blount’s level of contrition has been so substantial that it would make Scarlett (Gone with the Wind) blush. To be fair, the punch was more severe and unwarranted than anything Lambert did, but he did own it completely the very next day.
It depends on whether the purpose of the reaction is to punish, or to discipline. Which is the better course?
@Matt B – Yacob’s kick was a sight to behold. Unless you were the guy on the receiving end of it.
I wonder if someone from KCU could dig that video up. I have a pretty sweet clip of Rob getting knocked silly with an elbow. I’ll try to post it to Youtube soon.
BTW – My site uses Gravatars (Globaly Recognized Avatars) if you guys haven’t assigned one to your email addresses already. You can just go to http://en.gravatar.com/ and upload a picture to have you avatar go with you all over the place. We need more than just my mug on this thread, methinks.