From the Friday night lights of small towns across the U.S. to the NFL, football has never been more popular – or more besieged.
Sayreville, N.J. is just the latest community to be rocked and torn apart by allegations of sexual assault, this as part of a hazing ritual among the players on the Sayreville War Memorial High School team. With seven players under arrest, the season has been canceled.
“It’s a town that lives on Friday night lights. It was something for everyone to enjoy,” town Councilman David McGill told The New York Times. “We don’t want to see that big-league sports mentality start to trickle down to us….”
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Read MoreA shout-out to two former colleagues covering the NFL’s domestic abuse crisis.
Jane McManus of ESPN continues her fine reporting with a piece on the NFL’s addition of more women to the team that will ultimately help clean up this mess. A revelation: Off the Field, the NFL wives organization, is just being included in the discussion now. (Apparently, a first letter from the wives to the league was lost. What a surprise.)
If you’ve been reading this blog, then you know that Jane and I worked together at The Journal News, a Gannett publication. One of our estimable colleagues was longtime religion reporter Gary Stern, who contributed a piece on the entwined lives of NFL commish Roger Goodell and suspended player Ray Rice in the paper’s Oct. 5 edition. ...
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Read MoreThe NFL domestic abuse narrative took a twist Saturday as that other “football” game – soccer – got into the act.
Or didn’t. Hope Solo – goalie for the U.S. national women’s team – extended her shutout record to 73 even as she’s facing charges of punching her sister and 17-year-old nephew at a late-night, alcohol-fueled party, leaving them with head and face injuries. (Ironically, she was involved in an incident in which her husband, former football player Jerramy Stevens, allegedly assaulted her. A judge dismissed the case on the grounds of insufficient evidence.)
This as Roger Goodell...
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Read MoreFootball took a holiday from its troubles Sept. 18 as members of the New York Giants’ most recent Super Bowl-winning teams hit the runway at Bloomingdale’s White Plains to support New York Pet Rescue.
Former wide receiver Amani Toomer, former punter Jeff Feagles and former guard Chris Snee walked some four-legged models – or rather the “models” walked them, perhaps giving credence to W.C. Field’s line that you should never work with kids or dogs.
Or maybe you should. At one point, Andy – one of the two-legged models – paused (or should that be pawsed?) to let a woman in the audience pet the dog he was carrying. Then he kissed the hand that had caressed the animal. Lovely.
The event underscored that it takes all kinds to make this world. Football players generally are not as lithe of physique as models. Nor do they slip easily into ready-to-wear or hold a pose the way models do. They’re built for and are used to moving.
But the Giants trio had good fun, with Amani Toomer even imitating the classic model’s slouch for the delighted audience. ...
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Read MoreIt’s getting harder and harder to tell the proverbial players without a scorecard in the NFL as the rules keep changing daily, the scandal widens and the hits (to those off the field) keep coming.
First Adrian Peterson (running back, Minnesota Vikings, felony child abuse charge) was deactivated, then reactivated and now he’s on something called Commissioner Roger Goodell’s permission/exempt list, which sounds like a good thing but is a good/bad thing, because he can’t play (altogether now, awwww!) yet still gets paid, which, as we know, is the most important thing.
Joining Peterson in the lucrative timeout corner is Greg Hardy (Carolina Panthers, defensive end, appealing a conviction of domestic abuse). Will Jonathan Dwyer (Arizona Cardinals, running back, charged with aggravated assault involving his wife and toddler) be far behind? For now he’s been deactivated, but, as we’ve seen, anything can happen. ...
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Read MoreWell, that was quick.
No sooner was Adrian Peterson deactivated by the Minnesota Vikings for felony child abuse than he was reinstated after his team took a drubbing from the New England Patriots.
While Peterson is said to be a few floors short of an observation desk, he may not be as lacking in self-awareness as his smiling mug shot would attest. He’s taken to posting biblical passages of the “judge not lest ye be judged” variety. Religion may not be “the opiate of the masses,” as Karl Marx called it, but it is certainly the last refuge of the vilified.
Meanwhile, the Vikings have taken refuge in that other august document, the Constitution, saying there’s no reason Peterson should not play while awaiting due process. Really? ...
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Read MoreWhat a week for the NFL – Ray Rice’s indefinite suspension for coldcocking his wife, commish Roger Goodell’s failure to respond to the seriousness of the act from the get-go and now Vikings running back Adrian Peterson indicted for felony child abuse.
Peterson, who was released on $15,000 bond but deactivated for tomorrow’s game against the Patriots, took a switch to his 4-year-old for apparently pushing a sibling because of a motorbike video game. Instead of taking away the child’s game privileges, Peterson cut and bruised the boy’s buttocks, legs, ankles and even genital area with a tree branch. This has been a common form of punishment in certain parts of the United States, which is no excuse. We live with the past not in it. Lots of things that we once took for granted – smoking, driving without seatbelts – have since proven injurious, and smart people no longer do them. But making the smart choice isn’t always that easy. ...
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