**
by Pete Bodo
If you cruise around the Internet, as I do, as part of your morning routine, you may have noticed a confluence of streams that, in some places, led people to weave together the controversies surrounding Republican South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson, who shouted "You lie!" during President Obama's recent address to Congress, Kanye West the outspokenly liberal singer, who ripped the mike out of Taylor Swift's hands during one or another of those music industry awards shows, and. . . Serena Williams.
The context, in many of these cases, was a lament for civility, often accompanied by a nostalgic longing for the good old days when males were taught to be gentlemen and women encouraged to be ladies. Some commentators blamed the Internet for a general decline in public standards. Personally, I can't seem to remember a time when politicians weren't brawling (nor can most of the historians whose books I've read), or entertainers weren't getting drunk (or staying sober) as a prelude to making horses asses of themselves, sometimes in startlingly inventive ways. And I certainly can't remember a time when one or another tennis player wasn't apt to lose it, and embarrass him or herself on the international stage of a Grand Slam tournament.
I'm not sure how much the Internet has to do with it, except to say that the process of going "viral" blows things out of proportion and encourages them to take on a life of their own. The real problems begin when all those well-intentioned or merely self-interested handlers, managers, and spin-doctors try to halt the growing canker and, in the words of our hard-charging White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, decide to "Never let a serious crisis go to waste."
That's partly how and why Serena's ill-considered outburst went viral; as soon as it became something more than a simple, direct, sincere apology - that is, as soon as Serena began taking advantage of the crisis to tell us what a "passionate" person she is, and how life is a "journey," the opportunity to kill this thing in its tracks began to vanish into this fog of New Age garbage. The real message, based on the actions of the spin-doctors and perhaps even Serena, is: Never let a small crisis die a quiet death by dealing with it swiftly, efficiently, honestly - with a combination of what decency and common sense you possess.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Serena's meltdown ought to be examined on two separate tracks, and one unfortunate thing I've noticed is that people have trouble doing that. For example, it doesn't really detract from Kim Clijsters performance at the US Open that the opposition she faced may have been surprisingly weak; that's out of her control. Yet Clijster's accomplishment would probably have been held in higher regard had she gone through more intense trials before claiming her trophy - a fact that the tide of time will wash out of the sands of history for all but the most ardent students of the game.
So let's try to keep the two issues - the foot-fault call, and Serena's reaction to it - on parallel but separate tracks. As far as the call goes, I've consistently noticed one thing. Foot faults are called at really "inconvenient" times, often at critical times. I don't put this down to anything as nefarious as favoritism, although it's probably happened.I think it's because those line judges are in sleep mode during most of a match, but feel obliged to be extra vigilant at critical moments. No rule is enforced as selectively as the foot fault. It's a real problem, and one that probably can be fixed.
I don't know if the call was accurate or not; I just couldn't tell. What I do know is that the foot-fault was not not flagrant and could have had no meaningful bearing on the match. I'm not a person who is comfortable in gray areas, but I know one when I see one. I believe it's absolutely incumbent on the foot-fault judge to do two things: be sure a violation has occurred, and that the degree of violation is sufficient to interrupt play.
Why don't we have a special NBA referee, peering down the parallel lines of the free-throw lines to make sure that no player's toe is touching the line? Because it just isn't important enough when it you're talking about millimeters instead of a couple of inches. And no tennis player at the pro level flagrantly abuses the foot-fault rule; when it does happen, it's usually habitual, and caught immediately, at 2-1, 15-all in the first set. The foot-fault judge's duty is, or ought to be, ensuring that both players operate within an acceptable norm, "acceptable" containing very little wiggle room. This interpretation will displease many of the people who, generally, think along the same lines as I do, but let's remember, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
So here we had a player, Serena, who has an exemplary record for playing by the rules and accepting the decisions of the umpire and line judges. And we have a line judge who pushed her over some invisible emotional line by making a call, the accuracy of which can't even be ascertained by a careful examination of the video. It proved a deadly combination.
One of my first (and most lasting) reactions to this controversy was a growing conviction that Serena had done nothing that a few dozen men players haven't sunken to the heat of battle. My basic view of the entire affair remains the same: Lineswoman made a terrible decision, the victim of her call went ballistic. It happens in this game, and the higher the stakes the more volatile the reaction. I've seen it, oh, a thousand times. Remember when Jimmy Connors nearly shook an umpire out of his high chair, and the incident lived a short, happy life in the morning papers and died away, with no serious repercussions? Boys will be boys: did you catch Roger Federer during the final, telling the chair umpire, I don't give a sit what he (del Potro) says!*
Shouldn't we allow girls to be girls, too?
Granted, things are little different, now that Federer, Rafael Nadal, and the rest of the crew have made the world safe for exemplary conduct. The overall ATP and WTA standard of conduct is as high as it's ever been, and Serena herself has been exemplary in her on-court conduct. Tolerance for misconduct and even bad manners is lower than ever (how's that, all you bemoaners of that long lost and largely mythic civility?), which may be one reason for the up-tick in tennis's popularity (CBS has reported a a whopping 118% rise of viewership over last year's final for Monday's match). I understand that the poor little lady line judge felt menaced, but let's not get carried away - What was Serena going to do, club her in front of 20,000 fans and a vast international television audience?
Well, for a moment I thought she might - but it passed quickly. And then you just knew that the real damage had already been done by the the line judge and, if necessary, more would be added by the tournament referee and the court of media and public opinion. It was going to be in the hands of the Serena haters and the Serena apologists, whose intractable positions and feelings for the other side sometimes make our partisan political circuses seem like tame stuff. I myself was firmly in Serena's corner, at least until all the spinning began, at which point she disappointed me.
Serena should have recognized the value of those two simple words: "I'm sorry" earlier than she did. She should have uttered them as soon as possible to the victim of her outburst, and she should have clung to the basic meaning and message of those two little words as if it were a life preserver - something she would certainly need, as she was tossed left and right on the seas of the media.
Those two words would have been good enough, and the subsequent efforts at "damage control" were futile. Everything that came later, including the resort to those two little words (albeit with a suspicious-looking "sincerely" inserted between them, in an apparent attempt to stress something that nobody in his right mind would buy anymore) seemed forced, or calculated. I guess that's what happens when you refuse to let a serious crisis go to waste, when you go to the PR playbook and try to exert damage control instead of calling on your decency and sense of responsibility, trusting that you will be forgiven, maybe even exonerated.
Anyone whose every driven country roads knows that when you get stuck in the mud, spinning your wheels usually ends up sinking you up to your axles, and then you're done. That's what happened with Serena, and it's too bad. She didn't do anything that couldn't be adequately explained if not exactly justified by the situation, or atoned for by the use of those two little words.
If Serena is really paying attention to her "journey," that's the most valuable lesson she can take from this leg of the trip.