During the football season, we witnessed one of the worst brawls in college history, as the teams from Miami and Florida International fought during the middle of their game. Today, the athletics directors from both schools served on a panel about sportsmanship and Zach Lawson was there to take it all in.

Separated by just a year, two events???one highly viewed, the other barely publicized???were the topics of discussion in the aptly titled session "Sportsmanship Lessons Learned ??? What Happens When Things Go Wrong? A Town Hall Meeting."

On October 14, the football teams from Miami and Florida International were involved in a brawl during their game. You???ve seen the tape, probably more times than you need to, so you know how everything happened. Approximately one year prior, a post-game celebration involving tearing down a goal post following a University of Minnesota, Morris football game resulted in the death of a student.

In the case the Minnesota-Morris incident, Chancellor Jacqueline Johnson recalls the environment was not typical of the mob-like feeling that we???ve all seen after football games. Only twelve or so fans tore down the goal post that fell on the student.

So what do we do when bad, and sometimes tragic, things happen?

Paul Dee and Pete Garcia, the AD???s at Miami and Florida International, respectively, were also on the panel. Both men spoke to the levels of management and prevention needed to handle future situations.

Appropriately, the word of the day was education. Student-athletes and fans need to be educated about the expectation of their behavior and actions. Coaches need to be educated about game-day atmospheres. Administrators need to be educated about the steps to handle such events and prevent future incidents.

Panelist Alan Patterson is the chair of the NCAA Sportsmanship and Ethical Behavior Committee and made an important, yet simple, statement that sportsmanship should be expected. How easy is that?

When a certain behavior is expected and there is accountability for not living up to that expected behavior, an atmosphere is created that lends itself to educate and influence positive change.