The Sandspur

Issue date: 11/4/05 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Frank Espich/KRT Campus WE SUPPORT ARTEST: A Pacers fan shows his support for Ron Artest following the Detroit Brawl on November 19, 2004.

You're lying down on top of a scorers' table, trying to calm down after being restrained from a shoving match with the biggest bruiser on your team's biggest rival. You're sitting there laughing the whole thing off with your teammates while everyone finishes restraining everyone. The next thing you know, an unidentified fan throws a beer cup at you? What do you do? Do you sit there and take it and let some dim-witted fan throw a beer cup at you? Or do you do what Ron Artest did, and go after the fan and stick up for yourself?

Resorting to taking the abuse from a fan isn't even an option. In those kinds of situations you're not even thinking about the future or the consequences that may result from fighting. Fighting is about sticking up for yourself.

Sure, all you critics that think Artest should be banned can sit there and argue that he should be banned, and that he is an embarrassment to the league. But that is after the incident. After he was taken from the stands, two fans tried to fight him and he punched them both. What do you want him to do?

Take cheap shots from fans that had no business being on the floor in the first place. If anything is to blame for the whole incident, it's Detroit's security or lack there of. They should have never let those fans on the floor and they should have immediately taken the fan who threw the beer into custody.

With Ron Artest making his NBA regular season debut on November 2, in Orlando, everyone will be willing to see whether Artest is a changed man. "Sure he made a mistake. The crap hit the fan with the Detroit incident. He's learned his lesson. I'm sure he won't get himself into trouble," says NBA fanatic Kenny Rowland.

Kenny couldn't be more right about Artest keeping himself out of trouble. Before the Detroit incident he was suspended for a total of twelve games in the 2003-2004 for a variety of incidents that involved flagrant and "dirty" play. After last season's incident, the Pacers struggled as a team. They were considered the Finals favorite out of the Eastern conference. They struggled to a 44-38 record, and were ousted in the second round by the Detroit Pistons.

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