Deflategate: Iceberg, straight ahead

May 22, 2015

So NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will hear Tom Brady’s appeal, despite a request from the NFL Players Association that he recuse himself.

“One of the primary responsibilities of the commissioner is to protect the integrity of the game and to do what’s right for the game of football,” Goodell said.

“That’s my job. We have a process that’s been negotiated with the union that’s been in place for decades. It’s something that we’ve had in place for a long time and we’re going to do it that way.”

What planet is he on? First, there’s the NFL’s constant misuse of the word “integrity.” It means “wholeness.” In Jungian psychology, the integrated self is the self that is all of a piece. Alistair Cooke, the late, longtime host of “Masterpiece Theatre,” once said of Marilyn Monroe that she was a person of integrity – a mess off and onscreen. Cruel but you get his point: “Integrity” doesn’t mean “honesty.” It means that you’d be the same way with the president of the United States that you are with your grocer. It’s a quality that the Dalai Lama and the pope are said to have. It’s not a quality that’s usually associated with football players. What a surprise. ...

Hope’s Door will be taking part in a Manhattan march remembering Gladys Ricart on Sept. 26, the 15th anniversary of her murder by a former, abusive boyfriend.  Images courtesy Hope’s Door — Hope’s Door will be taking part in a Manhattan march remembering Gladys Ricart on Sept. 26, the 15th anniversary of her murder by a former, abusive boyfriend. Images courtesy Hope’s Door

Women, 1; NFL, 0

September 24, 2014

Let’s here it for the women who’ve been beating the drum on the NFL domestic violence scandal – CBS’ Hannah Storm, who made it personal; ESPN’s Janet McManus, who keeps on digging. (Truth in advertising: Jane and I were colleagues at Gannett. She’s one of those brilliantly educated people who can talk just as knowledgeably about classics as she can about sports. Jane – one of the models for Brenna James, the sophisticated sports columnist in my forthcoming novel in “The Games Men Play Series,” “In This Place You Hold Me” – also brings a compassionate eye to what she does.)

That combination of smarts and empathy is something that’s sorely lacking as recent developments suggest that NFL and team leaders just don’t get it. The latest to weigh in – and trip all over himself in the process – was Baltimore Ravens’ owner Stephen J. Bisciotti, who was on the defensive at a news conference, claiming that he and his team did not press the league to bury former running back Ray Rice’s arrest for cold-cocking his future wife, Janay. Let’s just say that the adage that a good defense stops a good offense doesn’t apply here.

Indeed, The New York Times’ Juliet Macur – another heroine fighting the good fight – said in a Sept. 23 column that Bisciotti, commish Roger Goodell and company should “please just stop talking.” ...

The NFL’s female trouble

August 4, 2014

Hard to believe but it’s already football season, and God, it’s off to a dreadful start, isn’t it, what with former coach and analyst Tony Dunghy saying he wouldn’t want Michael Sam, foreseeing trouble ahead for the NFL’s first openly gay player, and then Baltimore Raven Ray Rice getting a slap on the wrist for allegedly beating his wife in an Atlantic City elevator when she was still his fiancée.

This has been compounded by ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith saying that women should be careful not to provoke men, for which he received a week suspension. Now ESPN ombudsman Robert A. Lipsyte has weighed in, saying, “Smith’s attempts at coherency are often as exciting as Tim Tebow’s scrambling.”

OK, people, let’s start with the easiest of the problems here. Why drag Tim Tebow – a man who has never shown women anything but respect – into this? Here’s a guy who’s training hard, hoping to get back into the NFL, unwilling to give up on his dream. There’s something at once poignant and commendable about this. But the NFL culture – which rejected him – can’t stop making fun of him even as it uses him to draw eyeballs. Pathetic.

But there’s something more serious going on here.