A pair of meltdowns with different penalties for Serena Williams, Oregon’s LeGarrette Blount

Treatment of Oregon’s Blount and Serena differs

LeGarrette Blount got banned from college football for his outlandish outburst.

Serena Williams got invited back to play doubles in the U.S. Open after hers.

Blount called people to personally apologize for what he did, yet will never again play for the University of Oregon. Williams didn’t offer much of an apology, but was back on the court within hours.

Chances are Blount will never make a dime playing football, though he once seemed a lock for the NFL.

Williams split $420,000 with her sister on Monday, and will leave it to her accountant to figure out how to get a tax deduction for the paltry $10,000 fine levied against her by the impotent czars of tennis.

Why do I get the feeling something isn’t quite right here?

True, the incidents weren’t exactly the same. Williams didn’t punch anyone, though she apparently did threaten to use some tennis balls in a way they weren’t designed to be used.

And while Blount took his ire out on both the Boise State football team and its fans, Williams was directing her anger at one small, though seemingly terrified, target.

Still, they were similar enough.

Blount ruined a great night in Boise, where the home team won one of its biggest games ever only to have what happened afterward become the talk of the country.

Williams ruined a great tournament in New York, where a teenager’s great ride, a new mother’s win, and the upset of a player who looked like he could never be beaten were all overshadowed by one nasty display of temper.

Monday should have been all about Juan Martin del Potro and his epic win over Roger Federer. The 20-year-old stunned the tennis world by beating the five-time defending champion, who just a day earlier was in such fine form he closed out his semifinal match with what he called the best shot of his career.

Instead he had to share the spotlight with a player who shouldn’t have been allowed back on the Arthur Ashe court until next year at the earliest. Serena and her sister, Venus, had a doubles final to play, and U.S. tennis officials were too timid to tell them to take their rackets and go home.

Justice may have come too quick for Blount, who barely had time to get the sleep from his eyes the next day before learning his fate. But it came inexcusably slow for Williams who, like Blount, reacted in the heat of the moment in a display that will share a place with his in the YouTube sports hall of shame.

By now, most everyone who cares anything about tennis knows the story. Williams was called for a foot fault in her semifinal match against Kim Clijsters, then went after the linesperson — not once, but twice — and screamed expletives at her while shaking her racket like she was about to hit her over the head with it.

“If I could, I would take this … ball and shove it down your … throat,” Williams said, according to various accounts.

Fill in the blanks, and you get the idea.

To be fair, I don’t understand the need for linespeople in tennis, not in an electronic age where there are more scientific ways to figure out whether a ball is in or not or whether someone stepped on a line. At the same time I’ve never understood the desire of people to either volunteer or work on the court so they can be closer to the stars of the game.

Four of them were in use in Monday’s doubles final alone just to hold umbrellas over the players between breaks so they wouldn’t be exposed to the treacherous New York sun. Apparently they did their job well, because no one screamed at them.

What was almost as bad about Williams’ meltdown was her reaction afterward. At first she declined to talk about it, then issued a statement of semi-apology the next day that was followed up by an amended statement of apology on Monday.

But when Patrick McEnroe gave her a chance to apologize on court after the doubles finals, she laughed it off and her sister interrupted to say maybe it would just be best if everyone moved on. It was only later that she allowed how she would like to give the linesperson a “big ol’ hug.”

There’s still a chance that Williams might be penalized by Grand Slam tournament officials, who could suspend her or fine her up to her $350,000 singles winnings. But the top Grand Slam administrator has either gone mute or entered the witness protection program since the outburst.

Williams, of course, is a star and gets star treatment. Tennis needs her and her sister to provide a spark to the women’s game if nothing else than to justify the parity in prize money with the men.

She can apparently get away with losing control because of who she is.

Unfortunately for Blount, he can’t.

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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org