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Friday, March 14, 2003 Page: 1C
It wasn’t just what Willie Weber said, but how and when he said it, that
cost him. Or perhaps, it was what his coach said, and how he said it.
Weber, a Lake-Lehman senior, lost an elimination match at the PIAA
Wrestling Championships on March 7 in Hershey after he uttered the words
“Jesus Christ.” He was called for unsportsmanlike conduct, which awarded his
opponent a point, which cost Weber the match, which, being his second loss,
cost him a medal.
All I can say is, “Jesus Christ.”
I’m not a Christian, so the words have no deeper meaning for me than “Gosh
darn it” or “Gee willikers.”
Probably, I have been overheard using that phrase by people who do attach
great meaning to those words. Probably, I have offended them. That was not my
intention, and I’m sorry.
Still, the idea of special words is one worth exploring. The gilded words
that can be used only at certain times, only in certain ways, only by certain
people.
George Carlin’s list of dirty words comes to mind, but I’m not allowed to
type them.
Weber’s opponent, Brookville’s Matt Gilbert, was stalling at the time, and
when Weber was called out of bounds he, in his own words, “Mumbled it out of
exhaustion. I wasn’t saying it to a ref. I didn’t even look at him.”
Different meanings, different perspective
There is no doubt that if Weber had said to the referee, “You are a
bleeping bleep and I hope your bleeper gets blooped, twice” he would have
deserved to lose a point. That’s because in a sentence, his words would have
had a definable context and meaning.
Said by itself, “Jesus Christ” could mean a lot of things. It could mean
“I beseech you, my Lord, for help in smiting my heathen opponent.” It could
mean “God, give me strength,” Of course, what it actually did mean was
“Gosh darn it.”
All anti-ACLU types begin sharpening your swords now. Would he have lost a
point if he said “Allah?” If he said, “Buddha?” If he said “Confucius?”
If he said “Yahweh?”
What if he said “Oh, God?” What if he said “Heaven help me.”
Lake-Lehman coach Phil Lipski believes the penalty was actually called
because the ref was tired of the coach bugging him for a stalling call.
Personally, I don’t think it matters.
Let’s look at this as if we were from a another planet and had never seen
wrestling. Upon viewing this spectacle, we might assume that Weber had gotten
in trouble for trying to hurl another young man to the mat and pin him there
by just about any means necessary.
We might have thought, “What an odd and violent young man. I’m glad he’s
being punished, and I hope the other boy is, as well.”
Imagine our surprise when we found out that Weber was in fact penalized for
blurting out the name of a local deity, and not for trying to smush Gilbert
into the ground.”
“What an unusual and primitive society,” we might think.
Lane Filler’s column appears each Friday. Reach him at 829-7127 or
lfiller@leader.net.