The National Football League (NFL) may be one of the most macho and brutal competitions in the world, but that has not stopped it from being caught up in a squabble more commonly seen in kindergarten playgrounds.
As one of the most open and fiercely contested seasons in years bubbles toward the playoffs, the usual arguments about quarterbacks and wide receivers have suddenly been overshadowed by a debate over hair pulling.
The issue came to a head on Sunday when Cowboys running back Marion Barber was yanked to the turf by his distinctive dreadlocks.
Although are no rules in the NFL preventing players from grabbing their opponents by the mane while tackling them, Detroit defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh was penalized and later apologized to Barber.
“I’m not a dirty player,” Suh told the Detroit News.
However, that was by no means the end of the matter. Suh’s actions, and the subsequent penalty, have dominated NFL chat shows and blog sites all week, with current and former players and officials at odds over the issue.
Some have called for mandatory penalties on players who go in for hair-tugging, while others have suggested that players be banned from growing their locks, a proposal which NFL owners discussed in 2006, but chose not to enforce.
The issue is not isolated to the NFL. Several years ago, Australian rugby international George Smith, tired of having his braids repeatedly yanked on the field, chopped them off, sold them at auction and donated the proceeds to charity.
Last year, Elizabeth Lambert, a US college soccer player, became a global internet sensation when she was caught on camera jerking an opponent to the ground by her ponytail. She was later suspended from playing.
There was no ban for Suh, while for Barber, who is among a handful of players who wear their hair long as a tribute to their Samoan heritage, at least one thing is certain.
He has no plans to get a buzzcut and even has the backing of his coach.
“I’m fine with his hair being out,” Cowboys interim coach Jason Garrett told ESPN.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier