BY KATHRYN ROTH

After a 24-16 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday November 17, Washington Redskins left tackle Trent Williams made a claim that Roy Ellison, umpire on the officiating crew, made disrespectful remarks towards him during the game.

This story was featured all over the ESPN website, on SportsCenter, and various other sporting reports. All of these reports discussed whether or not Ellison should be punished or not for his actions.

My question is not if Ellison should be punished, but if this story is really news worthy.
It is no secret that this kind of behavior occurs on the field all of the time. You can go to any sporting event whether it’s at the high school, college, or professional level and hear the same kind of remarks that Ellison made.

This doesn’t make Ellison’s behavior acceptable, but the media is making him out to be a criminal for his actions as if he is the only person involved in sports to ever make comments like this on the field.

This type of behavior in sports, especially in the National Football League, has become the norm. It is unfortunate that coaches, players, and officials feel that they need to act this way, but we have to accept it and move on.

The media needs to spend less time criticizing people like Ellison for doing harmless things and focus on the more important stories in sports.

When I log onto ESPN or turn on SportsCenter to see the latest sports news, I want to see actual sports news, not grown men complaining about being called names.