2 jul 1994 año - Violence- Andres Escobar

Descripción:

During the 1994 game, Colombian soccer player and captain Andres Escobar accidentally ended up allowing a goal to be scored on his own team. He mistepped and blocked the goalie from saving the shot that ultimately led to the USA’s 2-1 victory for the world cup. The Colombian team came back from America empty-handed and without the title of being the 1994 World Cup Champions. Like every athlete should do after making a mistake, Escobar forgot about the mistake and was looking at improving and doing that much better the next time. Unfortunately, this never happened as a few nights after the game Escobar and his friends were at a local bar where people were provoking him with rude and degrading comments about himself and his family. Much to Escobar’s personality of him being a calm and respectful guy, Escobar left the bar in order to ensure there would not be a bar fight. Although this was the wrong move, as outside the bar were three men and a woman who kept badgering him. Andres Escobar remained calm and collected and kept on repeating that the goal was an accident. But that was not enough as the men took out handguns and shot Andres Escobar six times before leaving him to die in the parking lot all alone. He was brought into the hospital as soon as he was found, 45 minutes later when the doctors had tried everything they could to keep him alive, was pronounced dead.

The death of Andres Escobar demonstrates perfectly about the type of violence that sports can lead to both on and off the field hence relating to violence in the sports category. Columbians took the sport too seriously and bet money on the results of the game and as a result, a good and righteous man ended up dead and the whole Colombian soccer team quit or retired playing soccer altogether.

The thought that comes to mind when thinking about violence in sports is when hockey players have a fist fight during a game or when a football player gets hit so hard they suffer from a major concussion. Most people think about athletes injuries but not the death of players because of their actions on the field/court/rink. The death of Escobar is debatably the most violent act that has happened to an athlete in history, it is important that society knows about the risks players face every time they play their sport. Everyone needs to be aware that the outcome of the game is not the end of the world and that mistakes are inevitable when dealing with human beings. The death impacted individuals and society as it was the first major crime in regards to sports and for the public to see how far some people are willing to take things.

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