thousands of years to ancient Roman and Greek times. Each player simultaneously reveals their hand, extending any number of fingers, and calls out a number. Any player who successfully guesses the total number of fingers revealed by all players combined scores a point.”

Now for what Wikipedia failed to mention: The way we played, anyway, the winner shoves his victorious fingers right up to the loser’s eyeballs.

The winner roars with laughter, the loser groans in anger, and then both go have a beer together. No wonder it’s amusing to me when professional players are mad at opponents who celebrate after scoring touchdowns or hitting home runs at their expense.

This week the NFL — long the No Fun League — injected a little fun into the game.

Some fans and league personnel believe it’s about time, and others believe it shouldn’t have happened.

Fuddy-duddy Bengals coach Marvin Lewis is quoted as saying, “I’m not for (the change) at all … that’s not a very good example for young people.”

The Lewis camp characterizes celebrations as bad sportsmanship and as featuring the individual over the team, fearing the behavior will trickle down to the lower levels.

Yes, it could, but those are kids and these are grown men competing for a lot of money, a distinction that young athletes should learn.

If parents get that message across, they can celebrate by spiking their clipboards.

mimrem@dailyherald.com