Long live the handshake line
Rick Pitino refraining from post-game show of respect
St. John’s University basketball coach Rick Pitino announced in December his team would refrain from the post-game handshake line. Image from USA TODAY Sports via the New York Post
Even Christian high school basketball can get intense–some would even say chippy–when you play a division rival in the playoffs or the stakes of a conference championship or a tournament.
But at the end of the game, the teams shake hands.
Okay, Christian high school athletics isn’t the NCAA. However, it's a bad look for Rick Pitno, St. John’s University Red Storm men’s basketball coach, to announce his team would no longer do the handshake line.
Pitino is the first coach to win men’s NCAA basketball championships with two schools: the University of Kentucky in 1996, and the University of Louisville in 2013.
NJ.com reported the following Dec. 21, 2024 to bring context to Pitino’s “problems” with the handshake line:
The Bryant game was Dec. 11 at Carnesecca Arena and tensions apparently flared in the handshake line after St. John’s 99-77 victory. Pitino said a Bryant player elbowed St. John’s guard Deivon Smith in the line and it started a melee and the coaches got involved.
A scuffle also broke out after the Providence-Rhode Island game on Dec. 7 because Providence players apparently did not appreciate how Rhody’s David Fuchs dunked as time expired in the Rams’ 69-63 victory.
Additionally, former Michigan University coach Juwan Howard threw a punch at Wisconsin coach Greg Gard in February 2022 after Gard called a late timeout in a Wisconsin win. In February 2024, a fight broke out in the handshake line between Texas A&M Commerce and Incarnate Word following A&M’s overtime win.
My son played basketball four years for Bethel Baptist Christian Academy in Jamestown, NY. I remember multiple games where there were loose balls that players fought for, strong defensive play, verbal exchanges, or players attempting to take a charge where the temperature rose between players and teams.
While my primary role during those four high school basketball seasons was parent and fan, my son’s senior year, 2020-21, I started a three-year stint as athletic director, one year at BBCA, which would become Chautauqua Christian Academy (CCA). We had varsity boy’s basketball games where we fell behind early and came back to win. We had games where key starters got in foul trouble and the other players kept us in the game. We also had a game against a strong opponent that we had never beaten that we won in overtime.
There are countless situations that are intense between teams. Those intense situations may cause tempers to flare. Refs must control the games, and coaches must help their players maintain discipline and self-control–even in intense moments.
It is a good thing for teen-aged girls and boys and young adult women and men to learn how to win with grace and dignity and lose with grace and dignity. It’s good for them to understand the importance of playing the right way and doing so with sportsmanship and respect for the other team.
The solution isn’t refraining from the handshake line. The solution is coaches coaching young adults in a culture that feeds playing the right way, with character, dignity, respect, and sportsmanship. It’s a good thing for young athletes to walk away from a hard-fought contest–win or lose–and have respect for the opponent.
Why? Everything in life doesn’t go your way.
Unfortunately, our culture has created the desire for folks to get their 15 minutes of fame, and great moments, whether the play that wins a game or the handshake line altercation, will become a highlight on a sports show.
American culture serves up a daily cesspool on social media of disagreement, division, and disrespect. When certain events in politics or sports unfold, the consequences, sadly, may end with death threats.
Every March, the National Christian School Athletic Association has a basketball tournament at Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Mount Vernon, Ohio. More than 90 teams, both boys and girls, descend on central Ohio for at least three days.
In 2022, the International Sports Academy, which represented CCA athletics during the covid era, played a team from the Phoenix area at the NCSAA basketball tournament.
A parent from the team from Arizona walked away after that school lost a close contest to us praising our coaches, parents, and program for helping the kids compete with respect and playing the right way. There is no better testimony of your program than your kids competing on a national stage and a parent saying that.
It’s worth the challenge to save the post-game handshake line at all levels of sports.
Do it for the kids, young adults, and adults. They will be better for it
