Recently in Egypt 74 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured in a riot after a rare defeat of a top team.
It was a senseless and unnecessary loss of life. To some, soccer matches  are one thing people look forward too, and it results in emotional attachment. This is the consequence of making sports a priority. If fans do not tone down their passion in sports, we could be headed down a potentially dark path here as well.
In America, people love to watch sports. Football is the something people look forward to every Sunday, and baseball is still America’s favorite pastime.
Although the place of sports in our lives hasn’t changed, our attitudes as fans have.
There was a time when people played and watched the game just for enjoyment, but now with college sports being virtually commercialized and professional athletes becoming more recognized as icons, people are becoming more personally invested in their favorite sports teams.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t exactly expect ULM fans to go crazy if a big victory occurs, but sometimes fans across the country, including Louisiana, do take their sports seriously and get out of control.
For instance you may recall a certain incident where an Alabama fan “taunted” a drunk and passed out LSU fan in the French Quarter. I know LSU and Alabama are rivals, but their fans shouldn’t be.
ULM is obviously nowhere near LSU in terms of competitiveness, but let’s say that one day we are.
Do we really want to see ULM and LSU fans provoke and fight each other every week? These kinds of incidents between fans of rival teams are just getting worse and don’t make any sense.
The last time I checked, I didn’t get paid for a Saints Super Bowl victory or get a championship ring when LSU wins a national title.
Sometimes people take sports way too seriously and make it personal. We haven’t started many fires or had many riots yet, but if we continue to give sports such a high priority, then it might become an inevitability.
Do we really want a repeat of Egypt? Sometimes it is better to realize that sports are just a part of our lives and not the meaning of it.