Terrible behavior and scandals continue to make headlines…then are quickly overlooked when someone is talented.
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Last week Kansas City sports talk radio and social media blew up with a variety of responses to the Chiefs’ 5th round draft choice Tyreek Hill. The short story is Hill was arrested and plead guilty to domestic violence charges. The story is disgusting. Hill repeatedly punched his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach and head also choking her and slamming her head against the wall.
If you follow the NFL at all, the fact this guy was drafted isn’t a surprise. What is remarkable about this though, is how relatively small the talent has to be for teams in the NFL to not care about past behavior. Tyreek Hill is not a great football player. He is fast and according to scouts, has great potential in returning punts. That’s it? This isn’t Andrew Luck or Cam Newton level talent. Why would you take a chance on this guy repeating his behavior and having to deal with major off the field issues? A team just a few years removed from player committing murder then turning the gun on himself at the team’s practice facility. It doesn’t make any sense…except of course if you look at it realistically, which would mean they just don’t really care. And why would they? Anyone going to cancel their season tickets? Nope. Are jersey sales going to go down? Not a chance. They will deal with is some negativity on social media, the challenge of answering a few media questions for a couple of weeks, then it will be back to business as usual.
Anyone going to cancel their season tickets? Nope. Are jersey sales going to go down? Not a chance.
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This isn’t just about the NFL though. This is how we all operate. Talent trumps morals every day. People are very quick to forgive and look the other way when the person is extremely talented. Remember how mad everyone was at Kobe Bryant when he was accused of sexual assault? That lasted what, 6 months? It took even less for people to forgive Joe Paterno. Think about the number of scandals, not just in sports, that we’ve seen the last ten years. Domestic violence, child abuse, cheating scandals, on and on. But how many of them do we actually care about any more?
We get outraged over all sorts of behavior we don’t agree with. We take to social media to shout our anger into the noise and make sure our friends know how angry we are. But then the next season rolls around, the next album drops, the next movie comes out and they apologize publicly in an interview with Oprah or Anderson Cooper and we stop caring. We forget all about whatever deed they did that had us outraged.
People are only willing to stand for principles when it is convenient.
It is convenient to speak out against domestic violence when you are in the spotlight for not addressing these issues. It isn’t as convenient to quietly pass on a player because you believe domestic violence is wrong and disqualifies a person from the privilege of a place in the NFL.
At some point we have to do more though.
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It is convenient to get outraged over a mass shooting like Sandy Hook, offer thoughts and prayers and to cry out for better, more effective gun control. But it is hard to actually take action to see legislation changed. The next election cycle comes around and people spend more energy on optics and avoiding scandal than actually fighting for anything.
It is convenient to say bullying is bad, but how often do people actually put themselves in the middle of a conflict that happens in the classroom or on the subway or in the boardroom? It is far easier to say, “not my fight” than to speak up.
At some point we have to do more though. We have to join the efforts of people like Gabby Giffords & Mark Kelly, Michelle Alexander, Tim Wise, Malala Yousafzai. All taking significant strides to drive change. There can definitely be change, but it requires more of us to truly care.
Photo credit: flickr.com/Newtown graffiti
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Extreme talent will always trump everything. I hate to do this (too soon), but when I raise the point, with any supporting statistics, that my failure with women is in any way correlated to my extreme lack of stature, people recently like to point out Prince as a counter-example.
Yeah, Prince was incredible. Most of us, even if we’re merely “well above average” in many areas, will not overcome things like being extremely short. If you have extreme talent though, you are an extreme outlier, and can get away with extreme things, like being extremely amoral.
Whatcha gonna do?