What exactly is sportsmanship? It isn't what the Colts star player showed after the Super Bowl.

I don't watch football as a rule, but it's hard to avoid the news about a big Super Bowl win by an underdog team, which happened this last weekend. There is something exciting about that kind of win, with its own heroes and all.

But I just saw this story about how the star of the other team wouldn't shake hands with the winners, and this blogger is actually defending him. Something has radically drastically changed in our culture for anyone to make such a case. I must protest.

The story is titled Peyton Manning storms off Super Bowl field. Is he a poor sport?

You betcha he's a poor sport, by all our time-honored standards. I hope this story isn't a sign of the times, because if so we are living in a grungy new world these days in which nobody knows what being a good sport means any more.

Here is the story:

Peyton Manning didn't shake hands with New Orleans Saints players after his Indianapolis Colts lost 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV. Apparently some think this is a sign of poor sportsmanship from the NFL's greatest player. It's not.

Walking off the field without congratulating Drew Brees(notes) may go against our misguided notion of what sportsmanship should be, but it wasn't at all disrespectful or bitter. It shows how much Peyton Manning wanted to win the game. And who can argue about that?

I can!!! The whole POINT of sportsmanship is to rise above your passion to win the game. To congratulate your opponent, who wanted to win as badly as you did and was the winner this time as you've been at other times, is to show you are a civilized human being who can control his emotions and defer to another's happy moment, not rain on his parade just because of your disappointment. It's the grown-up thing to do.

What is this, Postmodernism meets Permissive Parenting's Sulky Adolescent or what?

LeBron James was caught up in a similar controversy during the NBA playoffs last year and the same thing that was true then is true now: A perfunctory handshake doesn't make someone a good sport. It either makes them indifferent to the game's result or a good actor. What would people have preferred Peyton and LeBron do, laugh off the loss with apathy and treat the victors to dinner after? This isn't Little League.

Oh brother, do you have things backward. In Little League we make some allowances for unbridled emotion. They're kids after all. We take the kid by the hand and lead him to the winner and coach him to shake hands without sulking, and then when he's grown up he should be able to rise above his lack of self control on his own. That's what good sportsmanship means.

Of course the loser isn't indifferent. It's not about what emotions we HAVE, it's about rising ABOVE the emotions we have. Self-restraint isn't acting. You don't pretend you're happy about your loss, you simply show decency to the other guy. It's about not imposing your state of mind on others. It's fundamental manners. We don't seem to have much of those any more.

No, this isn't about pretense, this is about a civilized gesture. It's about self control. It's about dignity. You make the civilized gesture, controlling your feelings, and THEN you leave the field. You don't "storm off" the field like a spoiled brat, you leave it quietly and with dignity. And leave the other team to celebrate. Go cry about your loss in private.

Again I hope this writer (and the ball players too for that matter) is just having an off day, not representative of a younger uncivilized generation.