Please Be Respectful During Injury Timeouts: An Open Letter To Penn State Football Fans

Penn State football obliterated Kent State 56-0 last Saturday, and it was a tough scene in Beaver Stadium from start to finish for the Golden Flashes.

The Nittany Lions put up 718 total yards of offense, the most in program history, compared to Kent State’s 67. Penn State picked up 40 first downs, while Kent State had just six. The Golden Flashes were forced to punt 10 times after having only one third-down conversion in the entire game.

However, what’s much worse than those statistics is the number of injuries suffered on the field Saturday. Kent State lost its starting quarterback, Devin Kargman, on the second play of the game after a hit sent him to the emergency room. Backup J.D. Sherrod went down with an injury in the second quarter. More players were hurt, causing stoppages in the game.

Injuries are the worst part of sports, and you should never be rooting for a player to get hurt, whether you like the player’s team or not.

Call me soft. Call me a snowflake. Call me whatever you want. The things I heard during the many injury timeouts last weekend were awful, uncompassionate, and utterly disgusting.

When a player, Kargman in this case, stays down on the field after the play is over and not moving while medical personnel surround him, it’s clearly a serious case that’ll take time to give that player the best care possible. As rain started to fall, many fans became impatient and aggravated during the stoppage in play. There is still no place for them to say, “Hit the weight room” during the break, which is exactly what I heard.

As another Kent State player was down on the field later in the game, someone in the student section shouted, “Grow a sack.” It was sickening. When a player who works so hard for the opportunity to be on that field is down with an injury, your reaction is to yell this?

When I heard that, I was horrified to call that my student section. Again, you can say I’m too sensitive, but it wasn’t OK. Some folks in the stands held up their shakers and applauded the players when they left the field, and to you, I say thank you.

Another injury occurred after those two, and I heard, “This is Big Ten football,” come from a couple of rows back. Kent State isn’t in the Big Ten, and even if it was, this still isn’t an acceptable thing to say.

When Nittany Lions are injured, almost the whole crowd goes silent, and those who are talking are only saying positive things. You can hate Kent State, or any team, as much as you want, but there is no room for that hatred to come out when a player is injured. Keep the same level of respect for other players down on the field that you show for Penn Staters during injury timeouts.

Kent State is one of the worst teams in college football, and it had to visit two top-10 teams in a row, playing Tennessee the week before Penn State. It’s a tough task to do that, one that is extremely demanding of the players’ bodies, and unfortunately, it takes a toll that sometimes leads to injuries.

I shouldn’t have to be writing this, but I truly felt the need to share these words. Injuries are a terrible thing, and no player should have to endure them. The harsh reality is, though, they will. When the time comes that there’s a game break due to an injury, please stay respectful. It’s the right thing to do.