When heroes fall
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Marisol Acuna questions whether we should continue to support our idols even when they’re accused of serious transgressions.
In 2016, the Kansas City Chiefs drafted Tyreek Hill despite him domestically abusing his pregnant girlfriend the year before. Instead of staying in jail, he was released and then rewarded regardless of his behaviour. The accusations were there, the proof of his arrest was there, and somehow a team in one of the most renowned sports leagues in the world still picked him up. Unfortunately, it’s one thing for an institution as big as the Chiefs to have their ethics crossed and be more concerned with winning and revenue than morals; but to what extent should we, the fans, support these athletes after they have committed a crime?
If him being on the team isn’t unsettling enough, picture all the kids who will be unwrapping his jersey for Christmas this year. He is a great football player, that’s undeniable. He’s been ranked the No. 19 player on The Top 100 Players of 2019 list by the NFL. But should he even be playing? These kids yearning for his jersey are most likely not even aware of his past before his rise to fame. The parents naive, getting this jersey to make their kids happy not knowing little Timmy or John will be wearing the name of a man on their backs who has abused women. Same thing applies for any other player who has broken the law. There’s Kareem Hunt accused of sexual abuse, Ray Rice who knocked his fiancé unconscious; and looking back, it gets even worse. There’s Devon Stallwarth who was reinstated into the NFL just one year after committing manslaughter while driving under the influence, and better known ones like O.J Simpson. All of these players are superheroes in these kids’ eyes, and when they commit a crime all the nine year olds understand is it equals suspension or expulsion from playing the sport.
I still remember the day I found out my personal idol had been accused of sexual abuse. My Ben Roethlisberger jersey was still crisp, not yet worn out from when I proudly asked my parents for it on my 10th birthday just a couple of months before. On that July day, my uncle was watching the news and shaking his head aggressively. He’s the biggest Steelers fan I know. He has Steelers couches, Steelers pots and pans, a Steelers welcome mat, and even Steelers crocs. I got it from him. Seeing him upset made me upset. I didn’t fully comprehend what Big Ben had done but it was surely something bad. My confusion only progressed when the season started in September and he was still playing. “Innocent, unless otherwise proven guilty,” is what I remember one of the adults saying to me. I can’t quite remember who it was. I held on to that. I didn’t want to hate Ben, his jersey was my newest one. Over the years, he’s had more scandals, but I still wear his jersey. Unless it’s proven that he sexually abused that woman in Nevada, I will always give him the benefit of the doubt because he was once my own version of Superman.
That same tension I felt everyday, is the same one every fan feels when finding out their favourite player has done something illegal. It’s indescribable. For kids, it’s hard to understand. For bandwagons, not hard to deal with because they’ll most likely switch teams. But for the day one fans, it’s hard. A true fan, not only admires, but respects and loves these players. Some even spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on jerseys, season tickets, and memorabilia like helmets and signed posters. Having been there, it almost feels like betrayal. Dedicating every Sunday to cheering them on, passing up on family time, date nights, everything you could possibly imagine to watch the games like a crazy person to then have the one you admire most commit a crime is unreal. They’re not only letting their team and coaches down, they’re letting us down. Massively.
Another factor to interpret is how team institutions set up their fanbases to be different to one another through their actions. In comparison to how the Chiefs dealt with the Tyreek Hill incident I mentioned earlier, the Ravens handling of the Ray Rice situation a few years back couldn’t have been more different. Ray Rice was once one of the star running backs for the Baltimore Ravens. Shockingly, in 2014, a video showing him punching his girlfriend in an elevator, forcing her to fall against the railing and knocking her unconscious was released. Prior to the video airing, he was suspended for two games but was later suspended indefinitely. The Ravens then offered every fan who had previously purchased a Rice jersey the opportunity to stop by the stadium in order to exchange theirs for any other they could possibly want. Eventually, after realizing most fans had unofficial jerseys, they still offered them gift vouchers in almost what seemed to be an apology for their player’s actions. This serves as some evidence of why Chiefs fans are more accepting of players like Hill and why Baltimore fans seem to tolerate less crimes committed by athletes on their team.
In a USA Today report from 2017, it was reported that 870 players out of a total of 1,696 have arrest records. That’s 51.3 percent. This number could essentially be misleading because the report goes all the way back to the year 2000. Regardless, this number raises concern for a lot of people. Yes, most of these could include misdemeanours or accusations but the fact that we’re celebrating a sport where close to half of the players have some sort of shady past is scary. For some people, football is like religion. Their couch is where they are meant to be every time a game is on and the referees are basically in charge of destiny. I personally can’t picture my life without football, but those numbers do make me question what it is I’m obsessing over. Sports are supposed to build character, but it seems like this sport along with the worship, wealth, and privilege that comes along with it is only dragging these players down. In after game interviews, all the questions pertain to passing yards, first downs, and future goals but when was the last time anyone asked these players how they are doing. Some of these athletes have gone from living in areas like The Bronx and The Southside of Chicago to being some of the highest paid people in the country which to most can be a drastic change in lifestyle. The difference between food stamps and seven course meals is immense, and sometimes it can get to these players heads. We all hold them to some grand esteem but after all they are only human like the rest of us and it’s likely their run ins with the law stem from this.
Robert Magee, a student athlete at Trinity University in San Antonio Texas, told me that he has always “felt positive pressure from [his] coaches and teammates,” saying they always encourage him to do his best. He also expanded on how “football has always [given him] a support system to work towards [his own and his] team goals.” This shows the positive side of high school and college football but at what point does this pressure become too much? When does it switch from having a positive impact to a negative one? When does this sport stop being a sport and start being a means of providing food for their families? At some point it switches focus from winning to money. We look up to these players because they do everything they can to make us feel like champions. They work towards helping us feel like for once we made the right choice of which team to support when they win. But in the end, for some of them it is all about the cars, the clout, and the grills. Like proven by LeVeon Bell who sat out most of last season because he didn’t get the extra millions he demanded for. So maybe they do deserve this money, but the unnerving question present throughout this piece asks, do they deserve our support?
Another aspect besides the pressure to win and provide for their families that could potentially be the lead into high numbers of crime in the NFL is “chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., the degenerative disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head. [Leading] to myriad symptoms, including memory loss, confusion, depression and dementia.” In 2017, Dr. Ann McKee examined the brains of 111 deceased NFL players. 110 of them were found to have the disease. The brains belonged to players who died from the age of 23 all the way up to as old as 89. These players ranged from all positions, with names like “Ronnie Caveness, [the] linebacker for the Houston Oilers and Kansas City Chiefs, [who] in college, … helped the Arkansas Razorbacks go undefeated in 1964.” These numbers are alarming because C.T.E can only “be diagnosed after death.” Meaning that even if players show symptoms of it now they are likely to keep playing in the league and not get treated.
It has clearly become easy to find a correlation between this disease and the outbreaks the players have been having over the years because “their depression, memory loss, impaired cognition and lower testosterone levels leave them feeling helpless, weak and dependent” on others. This normally ends in them living a lonely life and dying alone or in extreme cases suicide. Like both “Mike Webster, the former Pittsburgh Steelers great who spent the last years of his life living out of his pickup truck, writing incoherent diary entries in an attempt to express his anguish” and “Dave Duerson, who won a Super Bowl with the Chicago Bears in 1985, but shot and killed himself in 2011 at just 50 years old.”
Dr. Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist portrayed by Will Smith in Concussion , states that “a football player is more likely to be violent than someone who didn’t play, because of the brain damage. It doesn’t mean every football player will be violent, but there’s an increased risk.” One of the worst horror stories linking this disease and crime, is one of Kansas City Chiefs linebackers Jovan Belcher. Back in 2012, Belcher violently murdered his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins before driving to the Chiefs facility and shooting himself in the head. Like, Duerson and Webster his brain was also found to be affected by C.T.E. Unfortunately, this does create a sense of sympathy for these players. When reading these stats and picturing Ben, Mike, Jovan, all of them feeling like they didn’t have control or like they couldn’t bear living their lives anymore does make me feel for them but at the same time the things they did are unforgivable. There are alternatives to living with C.T.E - suicide and crime aren’t the only escapes. Brett Favre is one example of what shouldn’t be the exception but the rule. In interviews, he has expressed that he is sure he is having early symptoms of C.T.E. but instead of spiralling he has tried to shine light on how during his years in the NFL he had “hundreds, probably thousands [of concussions] throughout [his] career. Which is frightening.” He has spoken out about his symptoms saying with “simple words that would normally come out easy in a conversation, [he’ll] stammer.” He’s working hard to control it, and not letting it get to him because he’s aware that he has thousands of children looking up to him, with one of them being his grandson.
Football is one of the biggest aspects of the American culture but to what extent are we to support athletes infringing upon basic moral values to stay in the NFL? These players are fathers providing for their families, they are role models for kids all over the world, and the idols of people as old as ones in retiring homes. So why should they be allowed to be criminals? This problem is not only present here. It’s common in the NBA, the MLB, the NHL, every sport. And sadly, even more prominent in the music and film industry. Directors? Producers? Managers? Actors? They all have instances of committing felonies or sexually abusing those under them, the only difference is they have the means to cover it up. But most importantly they have us, the fans. If these institutions are ever going to start changing the way they draft, or the way they cast, or the way they pick who’s nominated for the Oscar’s or the Grammy’s it’s not going to start with their corrupt system. Their wealth stems from us, the ones funding their addictions, buying their jerseys and viewing their games and movies. So how long are we going to put up with this?