HEY HOLIER THAN THOU PEOPLE

Hi,

I root for several sports teams. In football (college and pro) and basketball, there happen to be many incidents involving the players, that are not exactly flattering in most people's eyes. As far as I know, there is not a single team that consists entirely of players that have experienced zero criminal incidents. As far as I know, there is not a single Fortune 500 company that employs only people with zero criminal charges (chick-fil-a?).

So when someone (these people are referred by Jason Whitlock as Palinites) says my team sucks because there happens to be someone who committed a crime on the team, I say, your team is no better. And thus begins the pissing contest of whose teams criminal charges are worse (my opinion rape worse than manslaughter, better than murder 2, accusations of rape worse than robbery, unless armed robbery).

After reflecting upon these arguments (nobody ever wins these arguments, we don't ever even say "agree to disagree"), I came to a conclusion, WTF, I DON'T CARE. If I wanted to root for a team based on how good the people on the team were, I'd go around to private Catholic high school games or I dunno, do nuns play ball? With the actual professional teams that I root for, all I care about is their ability to win and the style that they choose to go after the win. What a player does off the field/court/playing surface is irrelevant. I mean look, do I like the fact that Mike Vick trained dogs to fight and sorta (I say sorta ironically) tortured them? No, but he was caught, served time, and now he gets to play football. Mike Vick, the athlete, is defined by his performance on the field. Mike Vick, the person, is not someone I care to know. I don't care what any athlete does off the field, they are humans, maybe a little richer on average than the Average American, but am I surprised when an athlete is a dick or full of themselves or a nice person? No. They are people. Do I think it is news that Ben Roethlisberger attempted to have sex with a girl, who may or may not wanted to have sex? Nope. Do I think it is kind of funny? Yes, but only because normal people manage to have sex without all these sorts of issues. Do I think it will affect his ability to play football? Nope, I mean unless they put him in jail, but that's less affecting his abilities, and more affecting whether or not he can leave jail to go to Heinz Field.

In the end, I vow never to argue the merits of any sports team based on the criminal records (or some in cases lack of criminal records). In fact, I won't ever argue that the personalities or anything that is superficial about the athletes (like he struggled when he was younger so obviously he has great heart and wants to win even more) make any sort of difference in competition. Well, maybe basketball, because the great player's personality is imprinted in their style of play.

Conclusively (sort of),

Ed