Feigning offense is a national pastime. Take, for instance, an unremarkable moment nearly three years ago wherein a has been radio personality made a couple of racially insensitive jokes regarding the visual aesthetic of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team mid-game. We, the people, claimed moral indignation. Media Matters for America and Al Sharpton lambasted the fallen shock jock. Sponsors, in an attempt to avoid association with a perceived bigot, pulled their ads from his show. Even Hillary Clinton got in on the act, meeting with the team’s coach to discuss the healing process.

Healing process?

Yes, healing process. Those were coach Vivian Stringer’s words to describe how the team would move forward. It became a social responsibility of sorts for the ten championship caliber collegiate athletes to perpetuate the faux outrage. Other facets of their lives–their education, their future, and even their next basketball game–temporarily took a back seat to putting on a sad face for the media. The ladies played their part, pretending for a few days that a joke about the coarseness of their hair, made by a balding man wearing a Canadian tuxedo, had caused them great pain and suffering.

Nobody ever got around to addressing the root problem, which is that Don Imus just isn’t funny. But that’s neither here nor there.

Last Sunday, Todd Haley may or may not have concluded Arrowhead Stadium’s Fan Appreciation Day by flipping off a heckling fan. Unlike the Imus incident, there isn’t any video evidence (or, rather, none has come to light thus far). There is simply the word of the accused offender versus the word of the purported offendee.

The offendee’s version of the story, as relayed third person via local sports personality Jack Harry, involves him expressing his opinion of Haley’s coaching in no uncertain terms. Haley’s response was the classic Anglo-American one finger salute. Chiefs fans are offended that their beloved leader would stoop to such a crude means of expression. Simply put, exhibitions of digitus impudicus have no place in football.

Well, that’s Jack’s message, anyway. Jack also contends that additional insult is afoot here because the fan in question is a longtime season ticket holder. How Haley would have been privy to this knowledge prior to selecting a heckler at which to fly the bird is beyond me, but then again, so is the concept of outrage as it pertains to this sequence of events.

The right to heckle is a facet of free speech. So is the right of the heckled to retaliate, provided the retaliation is nonviolent. Fans sometimes have trouble reconciling themselves with the fact that athletes and coaches are actually people too. If Haley were the type that consistently reacted unfavorably to criticism, I might suggest he seek a less demanding mode of employment. Even if this story is true, however, he isn’t.

Anybody who has attended a professional or collegiate sporting event in their life is fully aware of the tenor of remarks made by disgruntled fans, particularly the ones made toward the end of games after several hours of oiling up with ballpark beer. Coaches with 1-4 division records take a lot of trash, and rightfully so. Nobody will ever provide an honest, accurate account of what was said to Haley to elicit that reaction (provided, again, that the story is true), but my guess is that it was something a little more caustic than a recommendation as to which fullback is better suited to 3rd and long situations.

My point is this: we all have a boiling point, and Haley’s is probably higher than yours. If Sunday’s events unfolded as Jack Harry described them, and you’re genuinely offended by Haley’s reaction, reconsider your priorities and/or grow a little backbone. If you’re feigning offense, as I suspect many are, find a new hobby. If you’re feigning offense as a means of supporting an argument against Haley’s continued employment in Kansas City, don’t bother. The results of this one game alone make your argument airtight.

Refreshingly, the alleged victim is not amongst the ranks of the outraged. He conveyed the story to a few friends as a humorous yarn. One of those friends passed it on to Jack Harry. Jack ran with it, despite a request from the alleged victim that he not. The fan is somewhat of an internet personality, and, in addition to taking no real offense from the event, didn’t want the stigma of a thin-skinned whiner.

Refer to the prior paragraph–Jack falls squarely into that final category. That category is fine for a fan, but wholly inappropriate for a broadcaster. Journalists bear the ethical responsibility of verifying information before presenting something as fact (see also: Dan Rather). Harry went on the air hours after the game and stated the matter as gospel, citing two emails from fans as prima facie evidence. He did not qualify his statements with words like “if”. He simply let loose, consequences be damned.

The consequences, regrettably, are inconsequential for him. It’s Haley and the fan who suffer. Haley is now forced to field questions on the matter in press conferences, and his awkward responses have done nothing to diminish public perception of his guilt. The fan, meanwhile, has gone into e-reclusion, curtailing his internet activity considerably to avoid the maelstrom left in Harry’s wake.

I’m in a unique position. I don’t like any of the three of them. I’m still gritting my teeth and trying to give Haley the benefit of the doubt as a rookie coach, but every week he makes that task a little more arduous. The fan in question is a guy whose website I find unimaginative and, in one spot, even mildly offensive. I don’t hold hecklers in high regard either, so if the story is indeed true, I can add that to the list of things I don’t like about the guy.

It’s Harry, however, who is the real villain in all of this. I live far enough outside the blackout zone that I don’t hear Harry unless, as was the case this week, his antics are so outlandish that friends of mine in the Kansas City area start complaining. Watching him rant about Haley’s supposed gesturing reminded me how lucky I am not to see him on a nightly basis.

I hope, however, that for those of you who aren’t so fortunate, you’ll give some consideration to redirecting some of that faux contempt toward a more deserving recipient. With Harry, the outrage doesn’t have to be phony either. Reaching one’s boiling point, which is all Haley (or the fan, for that matter) is really guilty of doing, is a justifiable act. Behaving unethically is not. Both Haley and the alleged victim are due an apology by Harry. Perhaps the fans at large are due one as well.

I’m not holding my breath.

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