I started out thinking that this blog was going to be a parody
of sorts of the dark humor beyond the circumstances of the various antics of
Jamie Winston, the Florida State star quarterback and last year’s Heisman
Trophy winner. I found it particularly humorous that two years after Mr.
Winston was accused of rape by another FSU student followed by a botched
criminal investigation, his arrest for shoplifting at a local Publix grocery
store, and the recent uttering of a swear word on campus, the only punishment
meted out for any misconduct was, until yesterday, suspension for the first
half of today’s football game because he said a bad word. Perhaps, it was more
drastic than simply washing his mouth out with soap, but not much. When the
public outrage clamored for more, the suspension was increased yesterday to a
full game! This is a Tom-like joke. It’s not funny and no one is laughing, (not
even me).
In the alleged rape case, as reported by the New York Times, the
police did not follow the leads that would have quickly identified Mr. Winston
as the suspect and witnesses, one of whom videotaped part of the sexual
encounter. After the accuser identified Mr. Winston as her assailant, the
police made no attempt to interview him for nearly two weeks and never
obtained his DNA. The detective handling the case waited two months to write
his first report and then suspended his inquiry without informing the accuser.
By the time the prosecutor got the case, important evidence had disappeared,
including the video of the sexual act.
The detective also told the complainant's attorney that because Tallahassee was a
big football town, her client would be “raked over the coals” if she pursued
the case.
In the shoplifting case, Mr. Winston was first arrested and it
was reported as such, then the police department claimed that it was not an
arrest, and he was given a ticket and sentenced to three or four hours of
community service. Publix’s usual policy is to prosecute all shoplifters as a
deterrent, but for some strange reason, it refused to do so in this case.
This Winston scenario occurred as professional football, colleges
and universities across the country face rising criticism over how they deal
with physical and sexual assaults as well as questions about whether athletes
sometimes receive preferential treatment.
The upshot is that prominence of
football (collegiate and professional) and the celebrity of its star players
are so all-encompassing they tend to overwhelm all other considerations. It’s
been disgusting to see the ways in which the focus on episodes that started
with assaults on young children and women has been turned from these victims to
the impact on powerful men who have hurt them. A lot of time and energy is
spent on what we should do or feel most recently about Jamie Winston, Ray Rice,
Adrian Peterson and even Roger Goodell, the hapless NFL commissioner. Perhaps
the best example of this has been the nearly forgotten Penn
State episode. Penn State was just restored to active status in collegiate
football after what is referred to as the “Sandusky” thing. To briefly
reiterate, Sandusky, a vital part of the Penn State football program, abused
innocent young boys sexually for more than a decade while others, including the
legendary Joe Paterno, silently ignored the situation because of the damage it
might do to the football program. When it all came out, the student body at Penn State conducted a candlelight vigil outside the Paterno
home in sympathy for his plight, the NFL equivalent of that public reaction
being the women wearing Rice football jerseys in moral support of Rice’s
conduct.
The thing that emerges from all
this is that we now have a clear understanding of the football power brokers’
priorities. NFL officials reacted, as did Paterno, with little more than a
shrug when the video of Rice battering his fiancée or the reports of Peterson
bloodying his little boy first surfaced and only went into action when sponsors
threatened boycotts if the league didn’t act. The public bears responsibility
here as well. The word on the street, I have heard it often, is that blacks do
beat their children and wives and Rice’s and Peterson’s behaviors must be
considered within that broader context.
To date, the message has been
loud and clear. To paraphrase the current response "Inaction does speak louder than words." In the eyes of college and NFL’s decision-makers and football
fans, it’s no great crime to rape little kids or susceptible college girls, beat up a woman or a child. But if a player damages the brand,
that’s another matter altogether. Particularly if a player tells the world he
is gay. Just ask Michael Sam. At last report, an anti-gay group is planning to protest
the Dallas Cowboys after the team signed the openly gay football star onto its
practice squad.
Just
saying . . .
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