Why Riot?

Kentucky Students Riot After NCAA Championship Win

That was the headline. Celebrating quickly turned into rioting after the University of Kentucky Wildcats won the 2012 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. It was estimated that 15,000 students gathered in Lexington, Kentucky.  

Homes were trashed, couches and mattresses were set on fire, windows were broken, policemen were assaulted with rocks and bottles, and one man was even shot.

Why does this happen? In the dictionary riot denotes a group of people causing disorder to protest. This team just won the national championship. What reason do they have to protest?

Riots don't occur often in the United States, but when they do it is most commonly sports-related. A riot accompanies about half of all championship games or series. But most the time it is the winning team who riots... That just doesn't make sense. 

Why mar a beautiful event by causing so much chaos and delinquency. It gives a bad name to the team, the community, the residents of the city, and in this case, the school. 

Vancouver got it right after their Canucks lost in game seven to the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup final. It seems as if rioting should supplement being angry rather than elation. 

Fans whose teams win championships should react like these two Canucks fans did.

Maybe rioting says something about the people who do it. Maybe it's a sign of being invested, or being a "true fan", but honestly I don't think so. It may be that we lack a central core of fans or just have a distinct laid back desert attitude, i'm just glad that when the Diamondbacks won 10 years ago that we were all classy enough to respect the city and honor the team by not rioting.