David Leggat: Athletes who lower the tone are lowering themselves

There's an all-British fight for the World Boxing Association title coming up in November in Manchester.

British boxing is as exciting as a plate of day-old baked beans. Actually make that the entire heavyweight boxing game, but anyway, the titleholder is a brash Londoner, David Haye. His challenger is a former Olympic champion, Audley Harrison.

We all know hyping a fight to ludicrous proportions is part of the game.

But this week Haye said that his fight against former buddy Harrison would be "as one-sided as a gang rape".

Now a bit of over-the-top is one thing, and as old as the fight game itself. It can be amusing, provided the deliverer has a suitably light touch.

But Haye could never be accused of possessing the gift of the clever verbal jab.

Women's groups were predictably and rightly outraged.

Harrison has the reputation of being a gentle giant with suspicions over the size of his heart when it comes to the battle in the ring.

Haye was then given the chance to retract his remark. Instead he tucked into a second helping of this rat pie. Far from stepping back he insisted he stood by his remarks.

Remember the 1997 Masters when Tiger Woods was en route to the first major triumph for an African-American golfer, and in Georgia, lynching land of the American south not all that long ago.

Champions choose the menu for the following year's Masters dinner.

Former champion Fuzzy Zoeller was regarded as a witty, popular guy on the USPGA Tour, until he made the remarks for which he will always be remembered.

He called Woods "that little boy". That comment jarred. But then: "You know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it?"

Before a parting shot: "Or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve."

"They". That was the clincher. Fuzzy was funny no more.

This week, Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice tweeted: "Suck on that faggots!" to the world, after the Wallabies' win over South Africa.

Outrage followed, Rice rained tears, lost her Jaguar contract and is hopefully a smarter person now than a week ago.

But the question in all this - and there's piles of other examples - is why.

What possesses sports people, who might normally be moderate to highly intelligent, to indulge in offensive or daft verbals?

Haye's comments were clearly planned, designed to drum up interest.

His defence was that he hadn't actually said he would gang rape Harrison. So that's all right then.

Zoeller's comments were off-the-cuff, chance remarks. But it could be argued they testified to a basic state of mind and a casual kind of racism.

Indiana-born Zoeller was dropped like a hot scone by sponsors for a time before recovering ground in later years on the Champions Tour.

Woods accepted his apology, and life moved on. But Zoeller willalways have that smear against his name.

As for triple Olympic champion Rice - and daft English cricketers Kevin Pietersen and Dimitri Mascarenhas for that matter, fined this week for abusive tweets after being overlooked in various ways by England selectors - they are the latest culprits of the Twitter age.

This is something people of a certain age just don't get.

Why would you want to follow the burblings of someone, like seagulls following a fishing trawler?

Each to their own in this strange world we now inhabit.