Tuesday was National Sportsmanship Day. Imagine that, a day for something that no one knew still existed.

As long as we’re at it, we may as well schedule National Courteous Driving Day. I’m sure it will get every bit as much attention as National Sportsmanship Day and have just as much effect on national behavior.

Not that it will take much to equal the impact a day for sportsmanship is having on the national consciousness. The Institute for International Sport at the University of Rhode Island hit on the idea back in 1990 of having a day for sportsmanship. After a mere 15 years, it’s grown to the point where, if you type "national sportsmanship day" into Google News, you’ll get five hits, including this one, and if you do the same with the MSN News search engine, you’ll get two — again, including this column.

Try "sports +thug" in Google News and you’ll come up with more than 100 current mentions.

That’s as pathetic as it is unsurprising.

When the icons of the game can’t even behave, what else can we expect? Temple coach John Chaney, who sent a goon into a college basketball game with instructions — faithfully carried out, by the way — to bust some bones, is just the latest example of someone who’s supposed to be a great leader and example acting badly.

But we’ve also seen Saint Joe Paterno grab and berate a ref after a college football game. We get regular doses of Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, crying about the officiating and the opposition. A lot of people think it’s great when New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner humiliates his players in public. And then we have NHL union chief Bob Goodenow and commissioner Gary Bettman, who spent a year calling each other names because it was so much more fun than negotiating a contract and saving the league.

George Widman / AP Temple suspended coach John Chaney for three games for using a goon to deliver hard fouls against St. Joseph's last week.

And that’s just from the guys at the top of their games. Go down to the player level and boorishness and poor sportsmanship is at epidemic levels.

Jose Canseco vomits all over the game that made it possible for him to squander millions of dollars and ends up on the best-seller list.

The biggest draw in boxing remains Mike Tyson, not because of his skills, because he doesn’t have any left, but because he talks about eating his opponents’ children.

The best show in golf, a lot of people will tell you, is the Ryder Cup, because the players hate each other and the fans are obnoxious.

The NBA has built a marketing campaign around chest-thumping, basket-hanging, in-your-face egomaniacs.

Baseball players feel obliged to stand at the plate admiring the majestic arc of their home runs.

In the NFL, we rant about Randy "Moon over Lambeau" Moss and Terrell "Sharpie" Owens. But we’re so used to excess we don’t even notice there isn’t a player left in the league who can restrain the urge to pose and preen after making the tackle that holds the opposing running back to an 18-yard gain.

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