By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Late Fall 1975, I was sitting in my living room that we never sat in with my father’s tie on. A coach from some nondescript college was talking to my Dad about me coming to play for him. “Never saw a missed block all night,” he crooned. “Your son can play.” My Dad, obviously flattered, asked the coach about academics and was edified that “Look, the books are the same wherever he goes, but we can do more for him. We can make him a man … you know, build his character.” “That’s our job,” Dad replied. Dad ushered him politely out of the house.
South Beach Bully
The nation’s been riveted by the revelations coming out of the Miami Dolphins locker room. Stanford educated right tackle Jonathan Martin abruptly left the team before a big game and checked into a local hospital claiming emotional exhaustion. The fatigue was not caused by the grinding NFL schedule but, according to Martin, from constant bullying by fellow offensive lineman Richie Incognito and others over a two-year period. Martin’s lawyers filed a complaint with the league for denying their client the right to earn a living by promoting or permitting a hostile work environment. Proven league bad-boy Incognito was suspended indefinitely.
A victim of bullying himself (according to his dad who makes Jim Piersall’s father look positively Howard Cunningham-ish by comparison-just read his message board comments sometimes), Incognito claims the coaches asked him to “toughen up” Martin. The Dolphins refuse to admit or deny any role in the hazing despite some persistent questioning from the press on the topic. Nicknamed “Big Weirdo” by Incognito and other NFL millionaires, Martin played left tackle for tough guy coach Jim Harbaugh during his college career and anchored one of the meanest o-lines in the country at Stanford. No matter, in today’s thuggish NFL because second round pick Martin didn’t drink, carouse, use racial epithets, get into fights with waiters, and generally behave the fool (like allegedly harassing women with a golf club to their private parts) like Incognito, Martin was not of the right stuff. Didn’t have the right character, you know.
Once the guffaws died down in the locker room, Martin’s teammates were quick to come to Incognito’s defense. Incognito, they said was Martin’s “best friend” and protector. Despite a grotesque voice mail message where Incognito called the mixed race Martin a “half-ni**er” and threatened to defecate in places too obscene to mention, the gridiron pros from South Beach decided breaking the Code of Silence so prevalent in all all-male institutions was worse than threatening to assault someone’s mother or vowing to kill a teammate or wishing to take part in a gang rape of your sister.”If I’m not mistaken,” one teammate said, Martin played the voice mail before members of the locker room fraternity laughing all the way. “If I’m not mistaken”? You’d think you’d recall with certainty the biggest story in the country’s key piece of damning evidence, but group think does have the tendency to make your forget facts and perhaps even morals, it seems.
Heartfelt From the Heartland
Change the scene from sin-city Miami to America’s heartland in Ypsilanti, Michigan: Former hot college coach Ron English, once defensive coordinator at football factory Michigan and other lesser members of the football cabal which dominates our consciousness on Saturday afternoons — and Tuesday nights, and Thursday nights, takes a new job and vows to “change the culture” at hapless Eastern Michigan University. That was 2008 and four plus years later all the Eagles have to show for that culture change is a 1-8 record this season losing eight straight games by an average score of 48-18. The previous years under English weren’t much better. He’s gone 11-46 since his arrival. Now frustrated at his players lack of “character,” English lashes out at the 18-22 years olds who beat themselves silly every day risking real injury as football’s concussion scandal has now shown, trying to please the man in the green golf shirt with the whistle around his neck:
* “You’ll always be (bleeped) up.”
* “How did so many young guys go bad?”
* “This is (bleep) football, as bad as I’ve ever been around.”
* “You have no respect for yourself.”
* “I respect football players … you ain’t no football players.”
You can listen to the “character building” yourself. Warning: Poor audio containing harsh but common football language including the seemingly obligatory homophobic slur:
Recorded by a player, the rant forced English out as coach even before his winning (or lack thereof) percentage did. The mavens of academe (who obviously have a wolf by the ears) issued a statement that reads like an epistle from St. Paul:
“We hold our coaches and staff to high standards of professionalism and conduct and there is no place, particularly in a student environment, where the language is appropriate. The statements made by Coach English are absolutely unacceptable. My decision to make a change in leadership of our football program was the culmination of a lot of factors including the comprehensive review of our program, the competitive performance and this tape.
“Our primary interest is in the well-being and success of our student-athletes and this will continue to be our priority in every decision we make and every action we take. My focus moving forward is on the quality of our student-athletes’ experience as well as the search process for the next leader of our football program.”
Well, maybe it reads more like an episode from Lassie: “What’s that girl? You say there’s bullying going on by adults over teenagers and 20-year olds who come to our school? Quick, Lassie get to the university legal affairs office for help! We need a statement now.”
What kind of character?
Maybe, if I was more savvy back in 1975 I would have the presence of mind to ask the coach in my living room just what kind of character he had in mind for me. Judging by the two recent debacles I think I’m getting the idea. I was to be machismo incarnate — tough, hostile to gays, intolerant of “weakness” real or imagined. A carouser, a harasser of women, respecting only those in the game and no one not associated with its savage charms, in short I was to be a football player in today’s NFL.
The sad and ironic thing is that the game really can build character. Time and scores of kids I’ve coached have showed me that. It can take shy kids like I was and, when it’s done right, allow them to earn confidence and acquire leadership skills. My high school coaches, as imperfect as they were, showed me that but I was too immature to see it. At 18, all I could understand was that Dad had just dismissed one of the few coaches in the world who thought I was good enough to put on a jersey for their team. How could Dad take away my dreams and forgo whatever financial scholarship bone the coach was willing to throw my way? Boy in 1975, I was mad.
Thanks, Dad.
Sources: USA Today; NY Daily News
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
zerohedge @zerohedge
JPM cancels #AskJPM
Lost Post
https://twitter.com/williambanzai7/statuses/400760708658655232
But you said they wanted people on welfare.
I look at the FED as a real bad entity that warps the economy. It needs to go. The FED caused, made necessary TARP.
The FED is Keynes and all those anti-Austrian ideas. So I am curious why you are against it?
“The FED is Keynes and all those anti-Austrian ideas. So I am curious why you are against it?”
Bron,
Why would you think I’m a fan of Keynes? As far as the Austrians go Von Mises is an idiot, that had no more economic smarts than Ayn Rand. Economics is not a science: It is common politics and venal self service cloaked as a science. The Fed is to my mind is an anti-Constitutional Corporatist institution. It is supported by Corporatists who represent both the left and the right wings. What you don’t realize is that the policies you advocate empower corporatism.
Mike Spindell:
“American Corporatism always needs a certain percentage of people out of work to keep wages low.”
How does that work? When there is scarcity of something, the price rises. Simple supply and demand.
‘How does that work? When there is scarcity of something, the price rises. Simple supply and demand.”
Bron,
In a market with a scarcity of jobs people work for less.
G’nite, Oky1
A counterpoint/critique of the Whitlock articles. Though the author states that some of his statements are satire one has to wonder, satire in the ‘Peter Principle’ vein perhaps?
http://newblackman.blogspot.com/2013/11/hurricane-obvious-or-not-incognito.html
Please, enough with “illegitimate”. Think about that word for a minute. Two kinds of families: legitimate and illegitimate produce two kinds of children, legitimate and illegitimate. How is a child or being of any sort not legitimate? What kind of fundamental attitude gives rise to painting beings as illegitimate? I think that’s one of those exploitable fallacies that carry over into the greater social fabric. All those illegitimate babies and children grow up to be what exactly? When do they become of gain legitimacy? At what age or after what tests?
Maybe it’s easier to dismiss or fear or hate or ignore people as adults, in this case African Americans, if we think of them as majorally illegitimate from birth. Not quite on the square, not quite right, not like us, not as good. We perhaps expect them (as individuals) to be trouble because we have statistics to prove it is a historically troubled demographic. Is it a self-fulfilling social prophesy?
What after all are illegitimate babies going to grow up to be but illegitimate adults? Is that why it’s ok for police to stop black people by the hundreds of thousand without concern of due process? Is that why it’s ok to lock up black men for drug use totally out of proportion to the number of drug users across all races? Is that why our Barack Obama’s presidency is thought to be “illegitimate” or that he is not a “legitimate” American?
Perhaps we would as a society turn out better adults if all families were considered legitimate and all children were considered legitimate and (as was observed up thread) the society provided the needed resources to foster a healthy family relationship.
We, as a society really need to get rid of the word “legitimate” as a descriptor for people. It’s prejudicial at the very least.
Gnite
Oops, typo:
Just like with making hamburgers many things had to come together & happen way before Joe & Suzie 6 pack were ever born & then later end up get caught in the waffle house parking lot replenishing the human species.
** I do think that illegitimacy leads to higher incidence of criminality. I only blame unwed mothers in part. Absent fathers bear responsibility too. Here’s the stats: **
Mespo,
Maybe try to consider these issues in the same context as if you were attempting to make hamburgers for family/friends.
There’s the list of ingredients:
Someone had to have a cow for the meat.
That cow would have needed a piece of ground to graze on.
Someone had to butcher it.
You need cheese, what all has to happen to get your hands on usable cheese.
Mayo or Mustard?
Hamburg buns, with or without sesame seeds?
etc….
Just like with making hamburgers many things had to come together & happen way before Joe & Suzie 6 pack end up get caught in the waffle house parking lot replenishing the human species.
🙂
http://www.krmg.com/news/news/local/couple-caught-having-sex-waffle-house-parking-lot/nbqNr/
Thanks OS.
My wife said the reports she read was he looped for sometime attempting to hold it up.
The ones I saw were he was circling attempting to hold the wing up with the failed engine before he fell straight down.
The circling makes sense. We should see some local video if he battled it for 10-15 minutes as it sound like what happened. I’ll post it if I see it.
There are plenty of crashes, this one just happens to be a setting US Senator’s son.
Sen Inhofe was already out sick with a quadruple bypass or some sort of major heart issue.
Dewey Bartlett, son of former OK Sen. Bartlett & maybe a Billionaires Koch Bro’s man defeated Kathy Taylor, a Billionaires Warren Buffet & Bloomberg gal for the office of Mayor of Tulsa today.
If Sen Inhofe has to step aside, now his son is out of the way & the door is open possibly for Dewey to run for his dad’s old seat.
People who’ve lived inside the bubble families of DC/Wallst have told me there are damn few accidents, just business.
Regardless, the NTSB investigate this story will likely die there.
And the engineering of Mitsubishi products I’ve worked on will still be second rate from the bean counters & lawyers, like with so many other companies.
Mike S:
I think it’s both a lapse of personal responsibility and walls put up by society. I don’t think we have to pick between the two. Whitlock gets it right in the main.
Oky1,
The MU-2 is a fast turboprop. It has small wings and a lot of power, which makes it fast. I have no idea and no opinion about the Inhofe crash, and am willing to wait and see what the NTSB investigation comes up with. It may be mechanical, may be pilot error, but odds are it is a combination of both.
One of the problems with airplanes having small short wings and lots of power comes when one of the engines decides to have a bad day. There is a speed in flying referred to as Vmc. That means “Velocity, minimum control.” Lot of power on one engine, no power on the other and when low airspeed such as landing or takeoff configuration, almost any twin engine airplane will want to swap ends. In WW2, we had a fast medium bomber called the B-26 Marauder with a somewhat similar design. Got the nickname of “flying coffin.” It too had a nasty reputation of killing pilots and crew in Vmc conditions.
Workers need not apply in the USA.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-12/biggest-threat-minimum-wage-restaurant-workers-everywhere
Well, at least Judge Rakoff said it in public.
Tyler Durden’s picture
Why Has Nobody Gone To Jail For The Financial Crisis? Judge Rakoff Says: “Blame The Government”
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/12/2013 – 21:27
Five years have passed since the onset of what is sometimes called the Great Recession. While the economy has slowly improved, there are still millions of Americans leading lives of quiet desperation: without jobs, without resources, without hope. Who was to blame?
“The government, writ large, had a hand in creating the conditions that encouraged the approval of dubious mortgages. It was the government, in the form of Congress, that repealed Glass-Steagall, thus allowing certain banks that had previously viewed mortgages as a source of interest income to become instead deeply involved in securitizing pools of mortgages in order to obtain the much greater profits available from trading. It was the government, in the form of both the executive and the legislature, that encouraged deregulation…”
– Judge Jed Rakoff
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-12/why-has-nobody-gone-jail-financial-crisis-according-judge-rakoff-its-governments-fau
I don’t a lot about planes but I do know enough to stay away from a Jap Zero mfg.
This crash wasn’t far from here.
http://www.krmg.com/news/news/local/new-details-emerging-about-plane-sen-inhofes-son-w/nbqbL/
Bron,
Yes. I have read and own the book (it is barely readable due to my marking it up with my own thoughts on certain pages). For years, I have enjoyed reading books about African and African-American history. I found his book when I was buying another book on Amazon.com (when you buy one book, on Amazon.com, they suggest you read or buy other similar books. Dr. Akbar’s book was one of them).
Mespo:
“I do think that illegitimacy leads to higher incidence of criminality. I only blame unwed mothers in part. Absent fathers bear responsibility too.”
I would say you are right.
RWL:
I saw that. How do you know of him?
Did you read that book? I think I am going to.
Dr. NA’IM AKBAR is a clinical psychologist and faculty member at Florida State University. Wikipedia has an interesting bio about Dr. Akbar.