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Save the insults for someone else
MATT KRUEGER Sports Reporter
Minutes after walking off the field at St. John Fisher College Friday, dripping with sweat, out

of breath and wanting nothing more than a cold shower and some food, Kevin Everett got a taste of what being a professional athlete is all about.

After waving to the fans huddled in the bleachers, calling out to him to come over and sign autographs, Everett turned toward the locker room. A voice that seconds earlier had clamored for Everett's John Hancock sounded out, "you suck!"

Yep, welcome to life in the pros, Kevin. Hope you have a thick skin, because these gimme-gimme-gimme fans will turn on you in a second if you don't accommodate them whenever they demand it. It doesn't matter that it may not be the best time for you. I mean, who cares if you just busted your butt on the field and need to relax. You owe it to the fans to sign their napkins, which will end up on eBay before you even make it to the showers.

Everett was one of the last players to stop practicing Friday. After the coaches excused the players for the day, he ran crossing routes with quarterback Kliff Kingsbury, because, as he said, he "needed to work on them." I guess working hard to ensure a place on the team, pushing himself to increase his skills and helping the team in any way he can takes a back seat to giving an obnoxious fan his fix of "just desserts."

Well, I have a message for the blowhard in the stands. Listen up, jerk. I understand the players should do whatever they can to connect with the fans. Without 80,000 screaming supporters each week, there is no team, no league, no sport. But remember, the players are men too. So, when you feel the need to spout insults from your self-important idiocy canyon you call a mouth, don't. You're not five years old, stop acting like it.

If you're going to ride a player and tell him he sucks, at least wait for him to screw up. Or maybe he should come to your job, wait until you are physically exhausted and shout at you in the parking lot, "you suck!" I'll bet my left arm you wouldn't think, "oh, he has the right to do that." You'd be ticked off something fierce. We all would. And guess what. So would Everett.

But Everett didn't get upset. He didn't respond in any way other than to continue walking into the locker room to catch a shower and head to the dining hall to get something to eat. He's a professional and handled the insult the way all football players are told to, by ignoring it.

It's the right thing to do, but could you blame the guy for hitting back a return like an Andre Agassi backhand?

There are plenty of athletes out there in the public eye worthy of scorn and ridicule. Heck, take your pick from the recent crop of steroid users, cheats and liars. Ask American sprinter Justin Gatlin if he'd like a massage with "special" cream. Tell American cyclist Floyd Landis you have inside information that it was actually the communists that falsified the results of his blood tests.

Now, if you want to get obscure, check out former Olympic gold medalist figure skater Wolfgang Schwarz, who received an eight-year prison sentence this week for plotting to kidnap a teenage girl and hold her for ransom.

Everett has done nothing to earn scorn from fans. After all, he's no Rafael Palmeiro.

e-mail: mkrueger@beenews.com