Somebody finally stepped up. And his name is Roger Goodell. He’s the commissioner of the National Football League, and recent reports offer evidence of him in having the largest mansack of the any of the commish in the Big 4, er, 3 (sorry NHL). According to recent reports, Adam “Pacman” Jones and Chris Henry will be suspended without pay for the season and half the season, respectively, for their off-field confrontations with the law.
I really wish you could have heard a conversation I had with Jared regarding Jamar Smith. My stance on athlete behavior is pretty much this: You are told from the first day you play for a school (be it grade school, junior high, high school, etc.), that it is a privilege to represent your team, and you should act accordingly. That means your standards are higher because when you wake up in the morning, you represent not only yourself, but a much bigger population (Ex. your fellow students, faculty of the school, fans of the team, citizens of the city, donors to the organization, and many, many other stakeholders). You are told it is a privilege on day one. You are told on day two. You hear it before every home game, every away game, every new season, and ever offseason. By the time an athlete exits his college playing days and ascends to the pros, the word privilege and its definition are ingrained on his (or her) mind.
Because of this, I find it more than difficult to look the other way when an athlete displays poor judgment on or off the field. These men are payed to play a game that they supposedly love. That’s a privilege. So when you bring your ex-con gangbanger posse to the club during All-Star weekend, and someone gets shot, I have no sympathy for you. The same goes for when you have sex with a minor, assault a police officer, get pulled over with a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit, beat your wife, or any other act that brings shame to the team you play for. If you do one of those things, you just bought yourself a ticket to the unemployment line. Call me old school, conservative, or just an idiot, but all this makes sense to me.
About Jamar Smith, I said I feel for the kid. He’s young, under a lot of pressure, and I hope his situation doesn’t prevent him from getting an education and providing for his future family. Do I think he should be kicked out of school? No. Do I think he should play another game for the Fighting Illini? No. He knew it was a privilege to play for his university when he made the decisions he made that night. He must have been told hundreds, if not thousands, of times in his life. That’s too much to ignore for me.
One day, I am going to teach high school math, and if my dreams come true, I’ll be a basketball coach at that school. The first day of tryouts, every child will be told what an honor it would be to make the team, and how his life should reflect that honor. Any other coach, parent, or role model those kids have will tell them the same thing. If one of my players cheats on a test, gets caught drinking, or performs an act anything less than becoming to his school and team, he will have played his last game. It’s not me trying to be a slave driver or a hardass; it’s nothing more than my belief of how athletes representing a team should behave.
Back to Roger Goodell handing down those thick suspensions, read this quote from the AP via FoxSports:
“It is a privilege to represent the NFL, not a right,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement announcing the suspensions. “These players and all members of our league have to make the right choices and decisions in their conduct on a consistent basis.”
We see eye to eye on this one.
Gary Hall
kyle
April 10, 2007
Amen!!