[Dewman]

What a total bull crap story! It wasn't society's fault that this punk decided to become a thug and killer! It wasn't his coach's fault! It wasn't the football fan's fault! And, from all accounts, it wasn't his parent's fault either. No one forced him to pull the trigger. It was HIS decision and HIS alone! Stories like this chap my hide! These so-called reporters continue to plant the flag of guilt in our backs every time someone strays from the path of good and righteous deeds and become evil...... like it was OUR fault. As if WE didn't do enough to help the poor kid. We should bow our head in shame! BULLCRAP! I didn't have a damn thing to do with this punks actions and I resent this A-hole writer even hinting that I did!


Rant Mode off..... for now.


Armour: Aaron Hernandez wasted future of endless possibilities

[Blue]

I think he was getting at the fact that a lot of college and pro super stars often get away with a lot because of the fan base. There's a lot of truth to that. Just wait until the NFL gets a load of Jameis Winston.

[Dewman]

I think he was getting at the fact that a lot of college and pro super stars often get away with a lot because of the fan base. There's a lot of truth to that. Just wait until the NFL gets a load of Jameis Winston.

Pray tell.... what does the "fan base" have to do with ANYONE getting away with ANYTHING? I'm curious.

[lightbox]

Check out this article:

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/darren-sharpers-rape-spree-shows-why-a...ay-with-crimes

Sharper raped a woman in September 2013 in New Orleans and despite the officer in charge of the case gathering evidence, compelling Sharper to give a sample of his DNA, that DNA matching the rape kit, video evidence, and witness corroboration, "it wasn't enough for the district attorney." The reason, the report argues, is because "prosecutors were hesitant to move too quickly on a local football hero with deep pockets and savvy lawyers" and so they held off an arrest warrant. They wanted a "bulletproof case before they would sign off on Sharper's arrest."

Chilling, if true. I can certainly believe that prosecutors are hesitant to risk their reputation on high profile cases unless they're dead-nuts certain they have it in the bag.

Not to mention the risk that goes along with prosecuting someone with those kind of resources. I wouldn't want to put my family at risk of an 'accident' if I were in that situation. It's got to be an unnerving job bringing these people to justice, and the constant feeling of having to look over your shoulder... how much risk / reward is that worth?

[magkelly]

When I was in junior and senior high there was a kid who tormented me almost unceasingly. He was an all round jock. He did track, played golf, bowled, and later participated in high school football too for the schools we attended. His group of popular thugs they physically, mentally and even sexually harassed me for over 7 years and not one teacher or school official did anything to stop them. Why? Because in terms of sports this kids was bringing them tons of glory. He liked to play football and he was as you can imagine valuable to them in this particular sport but he was on track to become a pro golfer, was already attracting notice from the local pros. By the time he was 16 he was playing in local and regional tournaments, sponsored by our school. He was the head of the school bowling team and he was an important player on the football field too, though he wasn't quite as good at that that it would have led to him playing pro football. He was brilliant on the golf course though supposedly. Anyway and I never knew why about the middle of sixth grade he decided that I was the perfect target and he started to harass and bully me nearly every day. Because he was so popular soon the whole school followed and it continued all the way through middle and high school.

I wasn't in a much better situation at home. My parents had issues with chemical addiction and verbal and physical abuse it was happening there too. By the time I hit my senior year I was losing it big time. Mentally I was stressed to the limit and physically I was starting to suffer from it. I had freaking ulcers at 17. I was throwing up from the stress all the time, couldn't eat much. I was a mostly straight A student up till about junior year. It was rare that I got anything less and when I did my Mom and Dad gave me hell. I wasn't allowed to fail. I worked near f/t, because my Mom had health issues I did most of the work that needed to be done at home, and I went to school and dealt with this brat and his group of bullies every day besides. It was a wonder I didn't kill myself or somebody else because I was in an absolute cold rage all the time.

In my senior year my art teacher who was a decent soul told me about an adult high school they had in town. If I had known about that place in my freshman year I'd have gone for it then. All that time all the teachers and counselors I had and not one of them told me there was an "out" a place like that where I could go and finish school in peace. I was actually done with high school a couple of months ahead of the norm. Later I went to the local junior college and started racking up credits there hoping to undo the damage I'd done to my grades in high school so I could transfer to another college later and maybe teach literature and art both of which I liked. I'd hoped never to see any of those kids ever again but as it happened my first year of college I saw two of them, one came to work for the company I worked for and the other was in a writing class I was taking in college.

Much to my surprise the guy I worked with pulled me aside one day and he actually apologized for being such an bully to me in school. For the record he was one of the worst offenders. He said he'd done a lot of thinking and growing up in the past year or so and he'd come to realize that what they had done to me was wrong and beyond cruel. He actually asked for my forgiveness. I was so flabberghasted I could not really speak. But I was impressed enough with the apology that I managed to nod. Later in the writing class there was an assignment to write from personal experience but to turn an incident in your real life into fiction. I wrote a story about a kid being isolated and bullied in school and making up an imaginary friend to cope. The latter part was strictly fiction, I didn't dream up imaginary friends to cope back then, but the incident I wrote about was real enough. The teacher liked my story so much she read it aloud. The girl who had bullied me in school, she stood up afterwards and in this shocked voice she said. "This is your story, isn't it?" to me. That wasn't supposed to be known. The only way I had agreed to her reading it aloud was if it was kept anonymous. But I wasn't about to deny it and I probably couldn't. I was sitting there half sick as she read it regretting I ever agreed. Clearly this girl had realized, had been there when it had happened in real life and remembered. I just nodded. I mean what could I say?

She looked down and then looked up and that was when I realized she was actually upset. She just looked at me and she said "I had no idea that you felt like that. It was just pranks." and then she sat down and kind of put her hand over her mouth like she was feeling a bit green and she added. "We were so wrong." That was the only apology I was going to get out of her but clearly I had shocked her into some kind of realization about herself and her behavior and at that moment she wasn't liking herself very much.

The whole time in school though, these jocks, their whole pack of girlfriends, they made my life just MISERABLE and no one cared. They were too popular, too valuable to the schools I attended and I was no one. These days I'm sure it's far worse with the internet and all but my experiences so damaged me that years later it can make me sick just to catch sight of anyone practically from my high school, except perhaps the few people back then who I actually hung out with, the other "freaks" like me. I fled this town as soon as I was able. The only reasons I ever came back involved family emergencies and having to take care of my Dad. The minute he's gone? I'm gone again and I will NEVER return. If I see any of these people and it unfortunately has happened I ignore them and any overtures they might make. Surprisingly most of the people who bullied me seem to forget they did. I've had people from that crowd of bullies walk up to me, chat me up, even try to hug me as though we were best friends back then. It's insane to me how dense they can be.

Oh and the main guy who bullied me? Get this after high school I met him while working a new job. He came into where I worked, took a look at the post high school me, and asked me out. No joke and he wasn't trying to bully or prank me. He meant it. I was like "You've got to be kidding me." and I turned and left him and went into the back. He came back a couple of times tried to argue that it was "just high school" and that we should "leave it behind us and start fresh." but I wasn't having any of that. He didn't actually apologize, not once, just kept coming by where I worked trying to chat me up. I was pretty cold to him, refused to serve him, left the front every time he talked to me. I told my one co-worker what was up and later my boss and while my boss did give me a bit of a lecture about being rude to a customer at first once he'd heard me he or one of the other guys inevitably stepped between me and Mr Jerk every time he showed up thereafter until one day he just stopped coming in.

He didn't quite give up though. As it turned out he was in a bowling league with my Dad that year. I used to go in to see Dad bowl and to check up on Mom, when I could, make sure she wasn't getting too drunk while he was occupied with bowling. He apparently tried to suck up to Dad to get him to persuade me to go out with him. At first it worked. My Dad was telling me all about this nice young man he bowled with and how he had a crush on me and wanted me to date him but was too shy to ask me himself. I'd caught on by then as to what guy though and I told my Dad exactly who this kid was. Needless to say the next time he came near my Dad my Dad let him have it. It was one thing for him to mess with me, it was another for some kid. Last time I saw this guy was in the bowling alley as I was coming out of the bar. He stopped and he said "I just don't get you! Why do you have to be such a b- about stuff that happened way back in high school?" For the life of me I just couldn't reply. It was just such a dumb, self-delusional comment that I was completely taken aback. I just put my hands up and walked away. I think I managed to finally mumble "Will you just stay the f- away from me!" but I doubt he heard me as I was moving pretty fast to get away from him. It was then that I realized he truly had NO clue as to the damage he'd done, none, and probably never would, and this is the part I don't get? Later that year I was talking to a good pal of mine that I'd known since we were little kids. She told me that in her freshman year which was our senior year, he had once defended her from a pack of bullies at our same school. At the same time he chose to help her he was still constantly bullying me. I had real trouble believing that story but she swore it was true and I had no reason to doubt her. She wasn't the type to make up things and we'd been friends a long time besides. We were not as close by then but still she would not have lied to me. It was just not who she was. My worst bully was apparently her savior, go figure...

As for me like I said I ran off to the big city as soon as I could. Didn't come back till I absolutely had to and even now I'm only here under protest. :P I made the most of it. I went into therapy, got my head on straight, did my level best to forget all that or at least put it behind me. Mostly I can, but not always. I still have some bad feelings that I have to deal with from time to time. Years ago my therapist suggested I work out my anger by doing some charity work involving kids with issues like mine. I started out working with gay kids, on a hotline for kids who were having a hard time, but later I got into a program in another state that is set up to address the topic of bullying in schools. People who were bullied, and some who did and who later repented doing so, they go round to schools and they give talks, tell the kids what happened or what they did back then and talk about what can happen as a result. When I came back here there was nothing like that so I started doing it here. I went to my old schools, for starters, and I asked to be allowed to give a talk to the kids on this subject. They set me up in the gym/auditorium respectively and I talked and then did a Q&A. Parents were allowed to attend as well.

To my surprise one of the parents there was one of the kids from my school. She stood up and admitted that and also admitted that she had back then been one of the kids who bullied me. She didn't exactly apologize but she did say that my talk had made her rethink her behavior back than. She had no idea of the lasting effects bullying could cause and apparently found it disturbing to realize that years later this stuff could still bother me enough to do this talk, to reach out to the kids. Her daughter and son were there and I'm thinking from the looks on their faces that they were pretty surprised too. I'm betting there was a lot of talking going on in that household that night, which as I see it is good. Better the dialogue than those kids end up doing it too, right? Bullying, it starts at home, with attitudes expressed there. If you stop it there, then you have a chance to stop it elsewhere.

I'm proof positive though that this can happen, that someone can get away with stuff like this for YEARS, if they are popular, are great at sports. Even now in an era where the topic of bullying and that is openly discussed the sports stars, the jocks they still often get a pass just because they are deemed valuable because they possess such a bankable skill. For the record as I said there was even sexual abuse back then. I was groped and humiliated. I was called things I don't care to repeat here. One guy, he shoved me up into a locker after school was over and the halls were nearly empty and I'm pretty sure that if a teacher hadn't walked by just then he'd have done a lot worse than just grope me. I was terrified of getting caught alone by any of these guys, afraid to go to the bathroom alone in the school for years. These jocks they could have raped me and I'm pretty sure that I'd have been blamed for it. My complaints to the school, I was totally treated like all of it was my fault and usually seen as hysterical and a troublemaker just because the guys I was accusing of harassing me we pretty much all on the football team. Senior year before I left they stole every book, every folder of work out of my locker. Desperate because midterms were coming up and I had no books, no notes to study, I complained and I was told that I'd be billed for the books and that and I quote" If I missed a midterm or failed one that I'd be forced to repeat a grade." No sympathy, no offer of help it was like she was sitting there bulling me too. That was the last straw for me. I told the dean I was talking that she and the whole f- school could go f- themselves, I was leaving and going to the adult high school, and I did. I sent the bill they sent to my parents back with a big red FU on it too, laugh.

I wish I could say it wasn't like this, but reality check, it is and it probably always will be to some degree. Still there usually has to be a certain level of heinousness to the crimes of someone like this before anyone will touch it. They will get off and be cossetted and adored until they commit a crime in such a way that even those who support them cannot ignore. I really think that they'd probably get away with more and worse things regardless if there wasn't the internet and a potential taint of guilt by association to worry about. I think the only reason that schools and sports associations are ostensibly stand up against sports related crime now is because they really don't have much of a choice in terms of the notoriety factor. They're getting too scared not to.

Anyway, that's my rather long winded tale of what happened to me and why I do what I do. I can't help but read about situations like in the article above and not think of all that. It sickens me that it's still happening, still indulged so much, it really does...

[MadMathMind]

Chilling, if true. I can certainly believe that prosecutors are hesitant to risk their reputation on high profile cases unless they're dead-nuts certain they have it in the bag.

A good 20% of Law and Order plotlines involve this issue.

Not to mention the risk that goes along with prosecuting someone with those kind of resources. I wouldn't want to put my family at risk of an 'accident' if I were in that situation. It's got to be an unnerving job bringing these people to justice, and the constant feeling of having to look over your shoulder... how much risk / reward is that worth?

I'd say the risk is more political than of bodily harm. DA is an elected position. If he is too aggressive prosecuting a local celebrity and it turns out the case was junk (or people perceive the case was junk), he may not be re-elected.

Of course, going for glory when the case isn't good is just as bad in celebrity cases. You may remember DA Mike Nifong from the Duke lacrosse case. We can't be sure what went through his head, but I'm pretty sure he had a mission to stick it to those "rich stuck up frat boy out-of-towners" and show the people of Durham he was all for them...end result is he was disbarred for gross impropriety trying to make a case.

[lightbox]

I'd say the risk is more political than of bodily harm.

You are right, but it has happened. Granted, these are mostly examples related to prosecution of organized crime, not star athletes:

Is Being a Prosecutor a Dangerous Job?

Although, it seems that it's even more risky being a witness. From linked article:

[...] Of course, I reassured them that I wasn’t in any real danger. After all, murdering an assistant district attorney is illogical. There’s a whole office full of other prosecutors who can take over any case should a colleague be killed.
It’s not like killing a witness, which could effectively end a case.

[magkelly]

You are right, but it has happened. Granted, these are mostly examples related to prosecution of organized crime, not star athletes:

Is Being a Prosecutor a Dangerous Job?

Although, it seems that it's even more risky being a witness. From linked article:

Some criminals take it awfully personally when they actually get convicted. There have been cases of jury members, judges, and even the lawyers that represented them getting killed after they got jailed. I would not want to be on a jury for a big crime case let alone prosecute or judge one. I think people who do this kind of work are very brave actually. They face a very real risk, day in and day out...

[RobA_Oz]

That's a terrible story, Mag, but sadly a not unfamiliar one. At least some of the people involved realised the seriousness of what they'd done, but the instigators don't seem to have the same ability to empathise. However, it also flabbergasts me when people defend privilege in unjustifiable situations, just because they're considered to be heroes (there's an overworked word if ever I heard one) or valuable property. I've even had people here (very, very few, fortunately) try to shut me down when I've commented on it, but once you've been on the wrong side of a popular bully, you don't give in easily.

I think in the reported case, however, no-one could possibly defend this bloke, even if they send him to Nikon college to reform him!

[Blue]

Pray tell.... what does the "fan base" have to do with ANYONE getting away with ANYTHING? I'm curious.

Money and whatever "glory" that goes with those programs.

[Clavius]

When I was in junior and senior high there was a kid who tormented me almost unceasingly. He was an all round jock. He did track, played golf, bowled, and later participated in high school football too for the schools we attended. His group of popular thugs they physically, mentally and even sexually harassed me for over 7 years and not one teacher or school official did anything to stop them. Why? Because in terms of sports this kids was bringing them tons of glory. He liked to play football and he was as you can imagine valuable to them in this particular sport but he was on track to become a pro golfer, was already attracting notice from the local pros. By the time he was 16 he was playing in local and regional tournaments, sponsored by our school. He was the head of the school bowling team and he was an important player on the football field too, though he wasn't quite as good at that that it would have led to him playing pro football. He was brilliant on the golf course though supposedly. Anyway and I never knew why about the middle of sixth grade he decided that I was the perfect target and he started to harass and bully me nearly every day. Because he was so popular soon the whole school followed and it continued all the way through middle and high school.

I wasn't in a much better situation at home. My parents had issues with chemical addiction and verbal and physical abuse it was happening there too. By the time I hit my senior year I was losing it big time. Mentally I was stressed to the limit and physically I was starting to suffer from it. I had freaking ulcers at 17. I was throwing up from the stress all the time, couldn't eat much. I was a mostly straight A student up till about junior year. It was rare that I got anything less and when I did my Mom and Dad gave me hell. I wasn't allowed to fail. I worked near f/t, because my Mom had health issues I did most of the work that needed to be done at home, and I went to school and dealt with this brat and his group of bullies every day besides. It was a wonder I didn't kill myself or somebody else because I was in an absolute cold rage all the time.

In my senior year my art teacher who was a decent soul told me about an adult high school they had in town. If I had known about that place in my freshman year I'd have gone for it then. All that time all the teachers and counselors I had and not one of them told me there was an "out" a place like that where I could go and finish school in peace. I was actually done with high school a couple of months ahead of the norm. Later I went to the local junior college and started racking up credits there hoping to undo the damage I'd done to my grades in high school so I could transfer to another college later and maybe teach literature and art both of which I liked. I'd hoped never to see any of those kids ever again but as it happened my first year of college I saw two of them, one came to work for the company I worked for and the other was in a writing class I was taking in college.

Much to my surprise the guy I worked with pulled me aside one day and he actually apologized for being such an arsehole to me in school. For the record he was one of the worst offenders. He said he'd done a lot of thinking and growing up in the past year or so and he'd come to realize that what they had done to me was wrong and beyond cruel. He actually asked for my forgiveness. I was so flabberghasted I could not really speak. But I was impressed enough with the apology that I managed to nod. Later in the writing class there was an assignment to write from personal experience but to turn an incident in your real life into fiction. I wrote a story about a kid being isolated and bullied in school and making up an imaginary friend to cope. The latter part was strictly fiction, I didn't dream up imaginary friends to cope back then, but the incident I wrote about was real enough. The teacher liked my story so much she read it aloud. The girl who had bullied me in school, she stood up afterwards and in this shocked voice she said. "This is your story, isn't it?" to me. That wasn't supposed to be known. The only way I had agreed to her reading it aloud was if it was kept anonymous. But I wasn't about to deny it and I probably couldn't. I was sitting there half sick as she read it regretting I ever agreed. Clearly this girl had realized, had been there when it had happened in real life and remembered. I just nodded. I mean what could I say?

She looked down and then looked up and that was when I realized she was actually upset. She just looked at me and she said "I had no idea that you felt like that. It was just pranks." and then she sat down and kind of put her hand over her mouth like she was feeling a bit green and she added. "We were so wrong." That was the only apology I was going to get out of her but clearly I had shocked her into some kind of realization about herself and her behavior and at that moment she wasn't liking herself very much.

The whole time in school though, these jocks, their whole pack of girlfriends, they made my life just MISERABLE and no one cared. They were too popular, too valuable to the schools I attended and I was no one. These days I'm sure it's far worse with the internet and all but my experiences so damaged me that years later it can make me sick just to catch sight of anyone practically from my high school, except perhaps the few people back then who I actually hung out with, the other "freaks" like me. I fled this town as soon as I was able. The only reasons I ever came back involved family emergencies and having to take care of my Dad. The minute he's gone? I'm gone again and I will NEVER return. If I see any of these people and it unfortunately has happened I ignore them and any overtures they might make. Surprisingly most of the people who bullied me seem to forget they did. I've had people from that crowd of bullies walk up to me, chat me up, even try to hug me as though we were best friends back then. It's insane to me how dense they can be.

Oh and the main guy who bullied me? Get this after high school I met him while working a new job. He came into where I worked, took a look at the post high school me, and asked me out. No joke and he wasn't trying to bully or prank me. He meant it. I was like "You've got to be kidding me." and I turned and left him and went into the back. He came back a couple of times tried to argue that it was "just high school" and that we should "leave it behind us and start fresh." but I wasn't having any of that. He didn't actually apologize, not once, just kept coming by where I worked trying to chat me up. I was pretty cold to him, refused to serve him, left the front every time he talked to me. I told my one co-worker what was up and later my boss and while my boss did give me a bit of a lecture about being rude to a customer at first once he'd heard me he or one of the other guys inevitably stepped between me and Mr Jerk every time he showed up thereafter until one day he just stopped coming in.

He didn't quite give up though. As it turned out he was in a bowling league with my Dad that year. I used to go in to see Dad bowl and to check up on Mom, when I could, make sure she wasn't getting too drunk while he was occupied with bowling. He apparently tried to suck up to Dad to get him to persuade me to go out with him. At first it worked. My Dad was telling me all about this nice young man he bowled with and how he had a crush on me and wanted me to date him but was too shy to ask me himself. I'd caught on by then as to what guy though and I told my Dad exactly who this kid was. Needless to say the next time he came near my Dad my Dad let him have it. It was one thing for him to mess with me, it was another for some kid. Last time I saw this guy was in the bowling alley as I was coming out of the bar. He stopped and he said "I just don't get you! Why do you have to be such a b- about stuff that happened way back in high school?" For the life of me I just couldn't reply. It was just such a dumb, self-delusional comment that I was completely taken aback. I just put my hands up and walked away. I think I managed to finally mumble "Will you just stay the f- away from me!" but I doubt he heard me as I was moving pretty fast to get away from him. It was then that I realized he truly had NO clue as to the damage he'd done, none, and probably never would, and this is the part I don't get? Later that year I was talking to a good pal of mine that I'd known since we were little kids. She told me that in her freshman year which was our senior year, he had once defended her from a pack of bullies at our same school. At the same time he chose to help her he was still constantly bullying me. I had real trouble believing that story but she swore it was true and I had no reason to doubt her. She wasn't the type to make up things and we'd been friends a long time besides. We were not as close by then but still she would not have lied to me. It was just not who she was. My worst bully was apparently her savior, go figure...

As for me like I said I ran off to the big city as soon as I could. Didn't come back till I absolutely had to and even now I'm only here under protest. :P I made the most of it. I went into therapy, got my head on straight, did my level best to forget all that or at least put it behind me. Mostly I can, but not always. I still have some bad feelings that I have to deal with from time to time. Years ago my therapist suggested I work out my anger by doing some charity work involving kids with issues like mine. I started out working with gay kids, on a hotline for kids who were having a hard time, but later I got into a program in another state that is set up to address the topic of bullying in schools. People who were bullied, and some who did and who later repented doing so, they go round to schools and they give talks, tell the kids what happened or what they did back then and talk about what can happen as a result. When I came back here there was nothing like that so I started doing it here. I went to my old schools, for starters, and I asked to be allowed to give a talk to the kids on this subject. They set me up in the gym/auditorium respectively and I talked and then did a Q&A. Parents were allowed to attend as well.

To my surprise one of the parents there was one of the kids from my school. She stood up and admitted that and also admitted that she had back then been one of the kids who bullied me. She didn't exactly apologize but she did say that my talk had made her rethink her behavior back than. She had no idea of the lasting effects bullying could cause and apparently found it disturbing to realize that years later this stuff could still bother me enough to do this talk, to reach out to the kids. Her daughter and son were there and I'm thinking from the looks on their faces that they were pretty surprised too. I'm betting there was a lot of talking going on in that household that night, which as I see it is good. Better the dialogue than those kids end up doing it too, right? Bullying, it starts at home, with attitudes expressed there. If you stop it there, then you have a chance to stop it elsewhere.

I'm proof positive though that this can happen, that someone can get away with stuff like this for YEARS, if they are popular, are great at sports. Even now in an era where the topic of bullying and that is openly discussed the sports stars, the jocks they still often get a pass just because they are deemed valuable because they possess such a bankable skill. For the record as I said there was even sexual abuse back then. I was groped and humiliated. I was called things I don't care to repeat here. One guy, he shoved me up into a locker after school was over and the halls were nearly empty and I'm pretty sure that if a teacher hadn't walked by just then he'd have done a lot worse than just grope me. I was terrified of getting caught alone by any of these guys, afraid to go to the bathroom alone in the school for years. These jocks they could have raped me and I'm pretty sure that I'd have been blamed for it. My complaints to the school, I was totally treated like all of it was my fault and usually seen as hysterical and a troublemaker just because the guys I was accusing of harassing me we pretty much all on the football team. Senior year before I left they stole every book, every folder of work out of my locker. Desperate because midterms were coming up and I had no books, no notes to study, I complained and I was told that I'd be billed for the books and that and I quote" If I missed a midterm or failed one that I'd be forced to repeat a grade." No sympathy, no offer of help it was like she was sitting there bulling me too. That was the last straw for me. I told the dean I was talking that she and the whole f- school could go f- themselves, I was leaving and going to the adult high school, and I did. I sent the bill they sent to my parents back with a big red FU on it too, laugh.

I wish I could say it wasn't like this, but reality check, it is and it probably always will be to some degree. Still there usually has to be a certain level of heinousness to the crimes of someone like this before anyone will touch it. They will get off and be cossetted and adored until they commit a crime in such a way that even those who support them cannot ignore. I really think that they'd probably get away with more and worse things regardless if there wasn't the internet and a potential taint of guilt by association to worry about. I think the only reason that schools and sports associations are ostensibly stand up against sports related crime now is because they really don't have much of a choice in terms of the notoriety factor. They're getting too scared not to.

Anyway, that's my rather long winded tale of what happened to me and why I do what I do. I can't help but read about situations like in the article above and not think of all that. It sickens me that it's still happening, still indulged so much, it really does...

What a horrible story! Sorry this happened to you. And quite unbelievable that this is even possible. I've seen American movies about schools and bullying, and I had always assumed that they are at least overly exaggerated, if not complete fiction.

This does not comply with a different article that I just read about US kids roaming/playing free without supervision, and their parents being punished. Overly protective towards children on one side whilst being completely oblivious of dangerous they are to eachother on the other side.

And as for sports hero's being excused from certain wrong doings: There's a reason lady Justice wears a blindfold.

[normhead]

Pray tell.... what does the "fan base" have to do with ANYONE getting away with ANYTHING? I'm curious.

If you've ever read the story of Maurice Claret, Ohio State star from their 2002 championship team, i'll paraphrase because I don't have the exact quote... " I would pass people on the street and there'd be 10 or 20$ in my pocket. People were lending cars for the weekend. At times I was getting $200 in a weekend just for walking down the street, I started thinking I got everything fro free, just because I was me." Maurice lost his eligibility and ended up doing time for armed robbery. He tried to make it in the NFL, but he wasn't NFL talent. But an interesting story of how a poor kid from a poor neighbourhood gets totally carried away because he's a little better than average on the sports field. No one makes anyone else pull the trigger, of use someone's cell phone after threatening them with a gun. But the fanbase attitude also creates an environment where one could think an awful lot of one's self. It's not the fans fault, but they didn't help either.

[monochrome]

Though the actions are unforgiveable, there is a kernel of truth to the issues raised in the story.

There are numerous college and professional athletes and sports executives (I personally know of 5 from St. Louis alone) who were 'discovered' in astonishingly humble circumstances and given the gift of 'hosting' by a strong, middle-class or upper middle class family. By hosting I do not mean tutoring - I mean living with a family as if they were adopted children, as an absolute, no-strings gift to a young person ( and typical his / her mother and / or grandmother).

I won't say who, because that is private, but if I did you would recognize the names.

As far as Mag's story, what an abomination. My parents and the parents of my friends taught us to be humble about ALL our gifts, to be free with our sharing of them, to treat ALL others with respect and dignity and especially - tyo treat girls, women - ladies - as if they were a special breed of person. My grandmother described this behavior set as being 'courtly'.

Those behaviors are generally frowned upon today, more's the pity. Cads (bounders, louts, boors, scoundrels - whatever you call them) such as Mag described would never, in my youth, have received any approbation at my schools and in my social groups.

[DeadJohn]

... It wasn't society's fault that this punk decided to become a thug and killer! ... I didn't have a damn thing to do with this punks actions and I resent this A-hole writer even hinting that I did! (snipped for brevity)

Cases like this and the overall crime rate does give occasion to question society's role, though. One murderer can be attributed to evil, but then why would America have more evil than nations with lower murder rates? Cultural practices and government policies influence the murder rate in complex ways. This is all part of society, and society is made up of all of us individuals, and my behavior directly and indirectly influences others' behavior.

[mattb123]

Not saying it's the sole cause but I believe there is too much money in mainstream pro sports. It detracts from the competition because it makes the whole industry about the bottom line. I'm not convinced there should even be an industry like the NFL. It makes the players believe they are super human and maybe in some ways they are but when some folks get that in their heads they can do some terrible things.

I love cycling but big money in cycling kind of killed pro cycling for me. I want to see a good race, not doped up human experiments trying to win by any means.