Feb. 8: "The grim slide"

As far as slopes go, I suppose this isn’t the slickest — but if we’re not careful, we could easily be headed toward the grimmest of slides.

Headlines were made across the world last week when an Italian soccer match between two rival teams turned ugly. If you’re familiar with the sport, you know I’m not talking about the play on the field.

At a match between Sicilian sides Catania and Palermo, the fans — or hooligans, or “ultras,” or whatever you want to call them — rioted.

Predictable enough.

No problem.

Happens all the time.

But somehow, someone tossed what the newspapers called “an explosive device” into a car. How or why someone brought a bomb to a soccer game is now irrelevant, because 38-year-old police inspector Filippo Raciti, one of the people on hand to ostensibly protect the peace and make sure no one is hurt, was killed in the explosion.

In our society, killing a cop is about as bad as it can get. This whole business would be less newsworthy if it were an 18-year-old kid with a criminal history who died, but that’s just my cynicism talking. It’s a big bad deal no matter what. An authority figure in a civilized country was killed at a freaking game. That’s bad.

It’s still uncertain how the sport or the Italian League is going to go forward. For now, they’re doing what they usually do — holding meetings and outraged press conferences, unveiling flower displays and playing what matches haven’t been suspended in empty stadiums, away from the threat posed by the paying public.

I’m bringing this up now because of that last bit. That’s what’s going to happen — kids playing basketball games in empty gyms — if local basketball fans can’t control themselves.

I’m still a relative newcomer to town, but I’ve been told that for years, trips to places like Franklin and Lincoln meant something more than just a basketball, baseball or football game. It meant hard words and even some hard hits. Just part of the game.

But it’s not just a problem in big-city Stockton’s hard-time public schools (which, of course, does not include Alex G. Spanos-bankrolled Lincoln).

Last month, a game between Fremont and everybody’s favorite St. Mary’s turned even uglier — as if the lopsided score wasn’t enough — when a fracas between two players in an already-decided preseason game spiraled into a gym-wide brawl.

At the Tracy-Bear Creek girls game Tuesday, a parent told me the Bulldogs had to get a police escort to their bus upon leaving the Yellowjackets’ gym during a Jan. 30 game at Franklin.

I couldn’t get any Tracy coach or administrator to talk to me on the record, but Franklin principal Scott Luhn told me the game was nearly called off by the poor maligned referees because of the unruly crowd. On both sides.

The Stockton Unified School District Police escort (does TUSD have their own cops with Glocks and nightsticks) was just to get the refs in and out of the gym in one piece.

I know it’s a long way off from murders in Sicily, but consider: If things keep getting worse, our own local teams might face the same empty stadiums because of some senseless violence.

“Quite honestly, we’d clear the gym (if it got worse),” Luhn said. “Everyone else is out if they can’t behave.”

“We try to teach our kids sportsmanship,” he added. “The crowds need to behave, too.”

Which would be fine with me. I can handle a couple elbows thrown in waning seconds or a hard foul here and there, but routine brawls? Parent-on-parent-on-student fights? Police escorts? In high school?

If that’s what I have to put up with just to watch kids play, I’m staying home.