There's probably a reason I would never have lasted in the sports department of a local television news station, and this week exemplified the incongruencies beyond a shadow of a doubt. In the 2-1/2 years since 9/11, it was easy to forget the sacrifices of an NFL player named Pat Tillman. He gave no interviews after his decision, he simply quit, and left to defend our country. There wasn't a sound bite to be edited. And since then, without granting interviews, there wasn't a lot the news media could do to create interest in a nonstory--a man defending his country by choice.
Fast forward to this week, and suddenly the NFL draft is upon us. My husband is now semi-retired, and we fight for control of the car radio on the way to pick up our son after school each afternoon. He's a fan of sports talk radio, while I prefer my Larry Elder. On the way home, my son chirps up from the back seat something about how I'll love this guy, Eli Manning, they're talking about, and my husband concedes "he's pulling a John Elway."
OK, I spent my summers in Maryland, so unlike most residents of the San Fernando Valley, Elway's antics at his potential drafting by the Colts (and how he'd defect to baseball) are still open wounds. To hear that another player is flat-out whining to the media about the prospect of being drafted by a team that "doesn't want to win" just makes me want to barf. If the draft had been held two weeks ago, I would have thought he was a selfish whiner, but that he was still acting like an ass just days after the death of Pat Tillman lacked class, it lacked integrity, and it just proves to me that some people Tillman was protecting might do better out there on the front lines for a few days, a few weeks or a few months just to get their priorities straight.
I'm disappointed that San Diego or that any team drafted such a moron. I'm disappointed that after drafting said moron that San Diego traded him. If football is truly the All-American sport, then maybe some all-American fans can tell Mr. Manning that his priorities are beyond pathetic. In the bigger scope of life over sports, Eli Manning hasn't even mastered the concept that sports are just a game. Maybe idiots like this could be introduced to a different kind of draft. Then playing a game for the big bucks would be put back into perspective.
Posted by Angel Zobel-Rodriguez at April 26, 2004 05:36 PM