It is being held in New York, this year, due to what sports writers call "The NFL Every Now and Then Brain Flatulence". The NFL is the most successful professional athletic venture ever, but sometimes they come up these wacky ideas like having the Super Bowl in cold weather cities like Detroit, Indianapolis and New York.
Another wacky idea that The NFL has is having sideline reporters ask athletes and coaches questions after a game. Usually these reporters are good looking females and they ask the tough questions like "What was going on through your mind when that guy threw that ball thingy to you?" However, at the end of the NFC championship, FOX Sideline Report
I did not see this live. I have this thing, called a job, and I like to be semi-awake for it on Monday morning, just in case someone brings in donuts. However, reaction was swift in the social media world. The main jest of the reaction is that Sherman displayed poor sportsmanship and was not a gracious winner. Of course, it didn't help things that
However, I know that this may surprise people, but this didn't bother me at all. Granted, it was graceless, classless and it seems Sherman is preparing for a second career as a WWE wrestler. The horse of Good Sportsmanship has run out of the barn long ago. Dignity is always the first to leave. Sure, I want a world where after a hard fought contest you see the winners and losers shake each others hands and go church to get an ice cream cone. That's just not the world we have.
In any event, was Sherman's rant worse than this?
Number 60 in this picture is Chuck Bednarik. He just tackled Frank Gifford (yes, that one) and was celebrating his tackle. Gifford is unconscious and was unable to play football the following season. That's football. It is played by people that knock other people unconscious and then celebrate it.
Of course, the reaction to Sherman's interview caused another reaction. This reaction caused an emergency meeting of the Humor Me staff (me and my cat) to see if I should comment. I have one big rule for this blog: I will not ever comment on race and various race issues. However, due to the seriousness of the subject (something getting in the way of real Super Bowl coverage), I have decided to grant myself a one time waiver on the topic of race.
Earl Ofrai Hutchinson wrote in The Huffington Post that Sherman's "rant again blew the hinge off the door of racial stereotypes". Hutchinson says, "The stereotypes flew fast and furious" because on Twitter Sherman was referred to as a "thug", "dirtbag", "scum" and a "disgrace". I'm not saying there wasn't an over-reaction, but is calling somebody a "disgrace" (in this instance) an example of racial stereotyping? Does Hutchinson or anyone actually know what the reaction would have been if a white player had gone on the same tirade as Sherman? David Zirin of Nation says, " (Also) get ready for two weeks of utterly uninteresting coverage that paints Peyton as a Southern gentleman in shining armor who will hopefully slay Richard Sherman, Compton’s “loudmouth” dread-locked dragon". Well, it has been one week now, and I haven't seen one story painting Pey-Pey Manning as a Southern gentleman ready to slay any dragon, much less one with dread-locks. We still have one week to go so it might come up.
Sherman, who is a graduate of Stanford University, says that calling someone a thug "is an accepted way of using the N-word". He complains nobody calls hockey players thugs and they fight all of the time. (Actually, there is a name for hockey players who fight all the time: "Goons".) Even Bill Maher, who the last time I checked was my shade, was getting in on the act, unequivocally calling the word "thug" a coded racial slur.
My question: Is there a place where we can find all of the acceptable and unacceptable words to use when trying to comment on an interview after a football game? That would be real helpful because we could say, "Stanford graduate, Richard Sherman, issued a statement regarding his deflected pass that won the game for The Seahawks that might or might not be to your liking depending upon your level of racism".
All of this is a bit silly. Here's what it was. A player, who was hyped up after making a great play and ticked off at his opponent blew off some steam in front of a nationally televised audience, most of whom probably wouldn't know Richard Sherman from Allan Sherman. They had no idea that he graduated from Stanford. They saw a football player act like a football player. People who use racial slurs on Twitter reflect only on themselves and not on America as a whole. Now, can we get back to the game?
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