Ex-Argo Theismann calls Williams ‘disgrace to game’
“I don’t ever want to be mentioned in the same breath as Ricky Williams as a football player. He’s a disgrace to the game. The man doesn’t deserve to play football. He should go on with his life and treat his drug addictions or go do whatever he wants to do. He’s been suspended from the National Football League on multiple occasions. Doesn’t anybody have any class anywhere? For gosh sakes, let the kid go do what he wants to do. He doesn’t want to play football,” Theismann, who is part of ESPN’s Monday Night Football announcing crew, said.
OK, there are few things I find sillier and more offensive than someone who thinks they have an absolute right to comment on how someone else lives their life simply because they belong to something that someone else also does. Never mind the fact that different generations generally connote different attitudes.
I respect Joe Theismann’s football aptitude and the insight he brings to an NFL game. Listening to a game that he’s working on ESPN normally means that you’ll be hearing some intellligent, cogent commentary- on the football game. Theismann doesn’t get paid for social commentary or to opine on the worthiness of other individuals who happen to think or live differently…and he would do well to keep that in mind. This sort of narrow, “holier-than-thou” judgement only makes him look small and intolerant.
Yes, I can understand where his outrage comes from, but it’s one thing to share it with a few close friends. It’s quite another to broadcast it hither and yon, where anyone (like me, f’rinstance) can do with it what they will.
I frankly don’t care about Ricky Williams, and I care even less about what Joe Thesimann thinks about Ricky WIlliams. Theismann is an ex-jock, a former quarterback who has as much credibility when it comes to social and lifestyle commentary as Michelle Malkin. I don’t particularly care about anything she has to say, either. Williams may have chosen a different path, one that Theismann may find abhorrent. Given that this is still (nominally) a free country, Williams is free to live his life as he sees fit- and he doesn’t have to get permission from Joe Theismann to do it.
Williams was suspended by the NFL for the entire 2006 season following a fourth positive drug test. But the Dolphins gave him permission to play this year in the CFL, and he signed with Toronto on Sunday.
Theismann, while calling Williams a “good kid” said he believes that the running back has had too many chances.
“We have rules in the National Football League. It’s real simple. Don’t do drugs and you can play. It’s a privilege to be able to play professional football. It’s not some rite of passage. He’s insulted the Miami Dolphins after they took him back and gave him a chance to play. Now he insults the intelligence of everybody that thinks that doing drugs is OK. To me, it’s the wrong message to send to kids. It’s the wrong thing to be doing, and the Toronto Argonauts have embarrassed themselves as an organization signing him,” Theismann said.
Of course, Theismann is free to hold and voice his opinions as he sees fit. I’m also free to think he’s a supercilious, self-righterous fool with more hubris than sense.
Whether or not you agree with Williams’ lifestyle choices or not, those choices are his to make. He understood the risks he was taking vis a vis the NFL’s drug policy, and now he is facing the consequences of those choices. What no one, particularly Joe Theismann, has is the right to deny Ricky Williams the right to make a living. In a profession whose career arc is depressingly short, losing one year to a suspension is significant. Yes, Williams’ Canadian Football League contract is about $270,000 for this season, but it is a substantial financial hit compared to what he would have been making in Miami.
So yes, Williams is paying a penalty, and I imagine that he is aware of that. He is paying a penalty for indulging in a little bit too much ganja. That’s what happen when you get caught breaking the rules.
Joe Theismann’s “holier than thou” act simply makes him look small and intolerant. IT also managed to earn him a DUMB@$$ AWARD. Congratulations, Joe…it makes a great doorstop.
