As primal urges go, Pat Fitzgerald’s middle finger has plenty of company − including mine, and my mother’s, but more on that in a moment. If nothing else, the Michigan State football coach followed his viral bird with something we don’t hear much these days.
An apology.
Even if he undercut it by telling reporters, "I know I can't do that, but I'm not going to apologize for fighting for my guys, and I'm not going to apologize for fighting for our program and our school.”
Still, good for him. And for us. We’d almost forgotten what that sounded like. But also, let’s not think his offense was anywhere near capital or unique. Fitzgerald joined a list of offenders that goes back 2,500 years, when Greeks used it as a phallic gesture, a taunt and, quite
literally, a poke.
Thankfully, it’s just metaphor now.
Can you imagine if Fitzgerald had used that digit to touch an official in the fourth quarter of MSU’s loss to Illinois, Saturday, Oct. 10? We’d be having a different conservation.
Instead, Fitzgerald used the finger the way most use that finger: in the heat of the moment, without much thought. Like, say, a driver did recently when he cut me off, and I honked, mostly to alert him to my presence.
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He didn’t appreciate it and alerted me to his presence with his middle finger, sticking half his torso out the window. Naturally, I returned the gesture.
Like Fitzgerald, I felt sheepish. I just didn’t have a podium to express it.
I hadn’t flipped anyone off since I was in my teens. Not that I hadn’t wanted to; that’s a level of equanimity I’ve never reached.
My mother had, until her later days of dementia, and she took to flipping people off regularly – mostly me and my brother when we were trying to keep her safe. She used her ring finger, which made it hard not to laugh, which only irritated her more. The gesture was meant to convey what words could not:
She felt wronged, not by me and the caregivers who restricted her movements as much as the disease that stripped her ability to speak and remember and eventually walk. Her “middle finger” was aimed at fate, and to an unjust world.
Rallying point?
Fitzgerald’s middle finger arose from a less existential kind of injustice, but one that comes with a more immediate and visceral wallop. His Spartans − injured, to-that-point overwhelmed − began to battle back against Illinois and had crawled within a score in the fourth quarter when they attempted an onside kick.
Miraculously, MSU recovered the kick. Then officials ruled that Samson Gash stepped out of bounds before falling on the ball after first ruling he was offsides. Replays suggested he was neither.
The crowd booed. Fitzgerald erupted. He eventually let the bird fly.
"My mom's rolling over in her grave,” he told reporters. “I need to be more disciplined, and I need to be more composed. I do have a passion problem, and I've had that for a long time. That needs to be more controlled and not be emotional, and I was emotional. I can't do that.”
I mean, he can, and he did, but he shouldn’t. But it’s not hard to understand why he did. Besides, flipping someone off because of an injustice feels different than flipping someone off because of pride.
Or ego.
Or being an (expletive), as Bud Adams, then owner of the Tennessee Titans, was when he gave the double bird to the Buffalo Bills after his Titans won in their home stadium in Nashville back in 2009.
In fact, sports is littered with the gesture, as you might remember, from Mike Ditka, who used the finger just because; to Jack McDowell who flipped off Yankees fans for booing him ... when he was pitching for the Yankees; to Charles Barkley, to Michael Vick, to Rex Ryan, to Marcus Hall, the former Ohio State Buckeye who was ejected after a fight on the field at the Big House and gave the crowd birds on his way into the tunnel.
In that moment, Michigan fans hated him. He hated them. And since he didn’t have a megaphone, he expressed himself in the loudest possible way in a stadium of 110,000.
Fitzgerald’s bird has mostly been met with enthusiasm. Considering the context, this isn’t surprising. For one, he flipped off the refs, as fans do every time they step into the stadium, arena or ballpark. For another, Spartan fans are desperate for anything to cheer about with their football program.
And while Fitzgerald did the right thing by apologizing and invoking his momma’s spirit and telling the university community that he expected more from himself, who doesn’t love the fire?
A well-timed bird can be cathartic, despite the guilt that usually follows. Aristophanes loved the power of the “long finger,” and the Romans reportedly called it “digitus impudicus,” or indecent finger.
Last Saturday in East Lansing, digitus Spartacus went viral, reminding us, once again, that all these centuries later, a well-placed finger can still change a narrative, and charge a narrative, in a flash.
My mother would’ve related.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Can Pat Fitzgerald's middle finger change course of MSU's program?
