2013 D-Bag Awards Round One: Richie Incognito vs. Aaron Hernandez

It’s the 2013 D-Bag Awards.  Continuing on Round One we come to the Sports Round.   

Richie Incognito vs. Aaron Hernandez

In this corner we have Richie Incognito, the Miami Dolphin Guard who bullied Jonathan Martin.   It was pure speculation that he did harass Martin but that all came to a head when a racial epithet laden voice mail came out and it was pretty apparent.  Now, the defense is that Incognito was acting under orders to “toughen” up Martin and he just took it too far.  Thing is, Incognito has had a reputation of bad behavior.  In 2009 he was considered, by the Sporting News, as the NFL’s dirtiest, voted for by players.   But, in other instances he’s been on the good end of things, so, which is it?  Roid Rage, Douche bag tactics, or simple misunderstanding?

Now, in this corner we have Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriot Tight End, who is currently a free agent and being investigated for murder.   Prior to the charges, he allegedly shot Alex Bradley, a friend.  But, Bradley declined to name Hernandez as the shooter and charges were dropped.  Before that was a double homicide investigation in Boston.  No arrest was made.   And earlier, in 2007, he was involved in an altercation with a bar employee over a bill.  After the argument ended, Hernandez decided to make sure the employee knew he won by punching him in the side of the head.   Clearly, he got his point across.

So, who wins this round?

With a bullet… It’s Hernandez.

Why?

Um… yeah…. If we have to explain this to you, then you clearly do not understand.  Look, we live in a day and age where bullying is a big deal.  IT IS!  Was I bullied as a kid?  Of course.  I was a glass wearing, brace wearing, dumpy clothes wearing nerd who got hounded by bullies all the time.  I survived.   That doesn’t make it right.  It just meant I handled it better than some.  Not everyone will overcome being bullied.  But, I also didn’t end up dead.   Hernandez, while still not convicted, has more and more evidence mounting against him.  He’s just a big ole murderous douche, if convicted.  Therefore, he’s our winner.

Dress To Suppress

At the age of 38, I have come to the conclusion that I have no one to impress on a daily basis.  Unless I am looking to advance in my career or I am mandated by certain mores such as company dress code or acceptable for the event, I will dress mostly for comfort.  Now, granted, being a t-shirt designer, after work and on the weekends I’m liable to be wearing a tee I love or designed, which has a message or is used for marketing purposes.  In any case, the my morning goes like this.

I get up, shower, and then put on clothes that satisfy the following criteria: did I wear that shirt last week, and is it comfortable for the weather  Beyond that, I don’t put a lot of thought into the manner or style of dress.   However, if you were to ask the me that was 25 years  my junior, you’d get a vastly different answer.    There was no comfort involved.  It was dress to suppress.

Now, what does that mean?

Well, in the case of eight to ten year old me, I wore a good deal of hand me downs.    Being the youngest of three, by seven years, I was subjected to wearing the clothes my brother had from a previous decade.   Factor in that my parents didn’t have a huge bank account, I wore the same clothes for multiple years while they fit.

But at some point, I wised up.  I went to my mother and thanked her for my impeccable fashion sense but asked if my older brother could take me clothes shopping before the first day of 7^th grade.   In my town, you had K-6 (Grade School) in one building, 7-9 (Junior High) in another, and then 10-12 (High School) in yet another.   You see, the division in schools also determine the threat level to one’s psyche from their classmates.  In grade school, you could get away with wearing sweat pants, a ¾ sleeve baseball tee, and Sears’ brand Velcro running shoes without drawing attention.  However, in sixth grade the natives begin to take notice and you prepare yourself for the inevitable catty comments about how you dress and how you look to your peers.   So, I decided to keep that from happening and turned in my running shoes for Nike high tops, just so I could keep up with the pack.   Then, in the summer before Junior High, I went on that all important clothes shopping trip to the mall with my older and infinitely cooler brother.  I came back with Ocean Pacific and Shah Safari shirts, Bugle Boys and Dockers pants, a pair of Chuck Taylors and assorted shirts from 80s mega trendy stores like Chess King and Just Pants (I’m kidding).

That first day of school was all about blending in and not sticking out.  It wasn’t about the clothes drawing attention.   It was about disguising myself to look like the enemy.  That way I could infiltrate their ranks and they could see me, not what I wore.   In those days, if your parents got your clothes at stores like Gabriel Bros. or Montgomery Ward, you were an easy target.  The cool people could zone in on you like a geek seeking missile, claws bared, ready to attack your fashion.  It was survival of the fittest.

By when you reach High School, the claws retract somewhat.   The rules are more relaxed.  In Junior High, the bodies and minds of teenagers go completely nuts.  All the instability of hormones and growing fight your ability to be comfortable in your own skin, so you lash out at others as a way to justify your own metamorphoses from ugly caterpillar to butterfly.   In High School, you stop focusing on how to take others out of the race and work to getting to the finish line first with flare.  It’s called preparation for college.  Soon, you start to compare acceptance letters to schools like you did with shoes or earrings, years before.  It’s not about how you dress, it’s about how you will succeed in your post High School career.  Still, I did do my best to keep up and went the route of the Boyz II Men, Olive Garden waiter route with jeans, white button down shirts, and ties.  Some days loafers, some days sneakers.     But I never got called out by the worst offenders from Junior High when it came to my clothes.   I mean I caught a glimpse of it in sixth grade with my clothing.  In Junior High, there was that one disastrous pair of blood Red Pro Keds high tops that nearly destroyed me.  Luckily, the poorest of the poor kids had on Moon Boots and the geek seeking missiles locked onto him instead.

Funny how, when you get to college, all of that goes out the window and you end up wearing pajamas to class or sweats with a ball cap, and you’re just fine.  Sometimes you wonder if uniforms in the education system help to tone down bullying or other harassment of not so cool kids in those years.    My argument for that is to a kid going through all the agony of adolescence, their clothes should be a coat of arms for their individuality.  I wouldn’t bow to inappropriate or obscene clothing, but as a form of expression and a way to help that transition, clothes do make the man they will become.  Why suppress that?

Coach Bully

There’s been a lot of talk about the firing of Mike Rice from his coaching position at Rutgers.   Video leaked out of him berating players, throwing balls at them, pushing them, grabbing them by the jersey, and calling them derogatory names.  He was suspended in December by Athletic Director Tim Pernetti .   In April, the tape came out to the media and Mike Rice was fired.  Soon after, Tim Pernetti resigned.   Now, a lot of this could point to Eric Murdock retaliating for being fired last July.  He gave the tape to Pernetti.   

But beyond the scandal and the suspension and the firing lies a bigger question.  Did Mike Rice bully his players?  Did Mike Rice deserve to be fired?  Was Mike Rice’s behavior taken somewhat out of context and made to look worse than he was?

When I was in Junior High we had a gym teacher that was less than smiles and rainbows.   I called him Coach Bully.  The first day of gym class, we had to bring in a white t-shirt.   He would then take a black magic marker and write our names on the front.   It was for his sake, of course.  He had to remember 30 kids' names.  Don't want to yell at the wrong one, right?   The manner in which he wrote our names told us from day one what kind of teacher he was going to be with us.   He wrote in my name and  dotted the “I” with the same force that John Travolta used to deliver the adrenaline shot to Uma Thurman’s heart in Pulp Fiction.   There was a nice dark welt on my chest where the marker made contact.  

The days in gym class, as a 12/13 year old, were not fun for someone who was on the pudgy side.  Constant remarks made about weight and physical aptitude were thrown about as I struggled with running a mile or climbing a rope.  I did get it done, but it took a lot of work. 

Once, I even attempted to be so brazen as to throw a comment back my teacher’s face.   “So-and-so, you must have thought they said trains when they were giving out brains and took a slow one.”    He told this to one of the other unfortunate fattys in the class.  Somewhat under my breath I chirped, “Yeah and when they gave out looks, you thought they said books and got a scary one.”   He shot a look down the line where he met with some stifled giggles and smiles but I managed to escape detection.

I feared gym class that first year.  I prayed for rain when it was time to run the mile.   But after awhile, I got used to his barbs and managed to get Bs and a few As in those three years I was in his class.

Was he a bully?  It could be argued as such.   If we had cell phone and digital camera technology then, someone could have easily of filmed our classes and put together a pretty damning video of his behavior.   Do I think he was a bully.  Ehh?   Maybe, but it didn’t bother me.    I’m sure some of the other kids, the ones who weren’t used to the abuse took it harder but we all survived.

The thing is, that kind of behavior has been around since the dawn of athletics or exercise.   Any time you have a group of younger players on a team, their coach or teacher is bound to be rough on them to get certain results.   Bobby Knight was infamous for his behavior on and off the court.   But, perhaps the problem with the Mike Rice case is, no one asked the players how they felt about.

I’m sure some of the players would like nothing more than to burn him in effigy for his behavior towards them, but on the whole I think they got it.  I think they understood it was a style of coaching.   Not everyone is like that and not everyone responds well to it.  

Were Rice’s tactics needed?  Of course not.   No one deserves to be treated like that and there are probably more effective ways of being tough and getting results without having to throw balls or insults around.  Look at Herb Brooks at the 80 Olympics.   He wasn’t exactly a peach, but he also didn’t call his players, “F**king Fa**ots.”

Part of the problem my generation faces as we head into parenting is that we tend to want to give our kids a better life than we had.  The issue is that we had a pretty decent life.   Our kids have it a hell of a lot better than they should and that’s the problem.   This generation of kid is too entitled and expecting of instant gratification.   If they don’t like the way they’re treated, the other person, teacher, coach, whatever needs to be fired.  It’s never their fault or their responsibility.

Kids playing soccer these days are not subjected to competition.    There is no score.   Everyone wins.  Everyone gets a trophy, including the kid who rode the bench all season.    The truth is, everyone is not the same.  Everyone is not the best.  Someone has to lose once in a while and that someone needs to be your kid on occasion.   

Now, like I said, Eric Murdock could have orchestrated this whole thing to look worse than it was in retaliation for being fired.   Mike Rice is his own worst enemy when it comes to his behavior  but it was contextually damning.

I think the suspension and mandated anger management class would have been sufficient.    Unless there were conversations behind closed doors that showed he had no intention of changing his ways and was not remorseful for his representation of his University then firing might have been the right choice.   However, considering what happened at Penn State, administrators are not willing to risk sanctions and punishments handed down by the volatile NCAA powers that be.  The public is keeping a close and watchful eye on their investments.  Parents will pull up their kids recruiting tent stakes and go somewhere else if there is a possibility that some harm may come to their precious snowflake.

Then again, maybe Rutgers did this as a way to not lose money.  Hide the scandal in order to keep Rice coaching as he was doing a pretty decent job there.   When it came out,  scuttle the mess to avoid recruiting losses and NCAA punishments.   In the end, the business of being a big name basketball program tarnishes the image of trying to foster and mentor young student athletes. 

In the end, none of us died at the hands of Coach Bully.   Some of us got a little more motivation to succeed.   Granted, we weren’t vying for a national title, but seems like our little egos were strong enough to overcome the hot air ramblings of a guy we only saw twice a week for nine months.   Maybe, we need to give our own kids a chance to rise to the occasion.  Maybe we need to let them make it better for themselves before we swoop in and save the day.    Maybe, that welt on my chest healed just fine with no scar or permanent damage left behind.  Know your kid.  Know their limits.   Know when to catch and when to release.