The Fire Inside: January 2014

The Friday before Championship Sunday (the NFL semi-finals for those of you who may be reading this that are not familiar with the terminology) I was asked by one of my students who I was rooting for since my much belied Bengals had returned to their Bungle form and had been inexplicably bounced from the playoffs.

I answered without hesitation, “Anyone but the Patriots.”

At that moment, I believed that. It’s not that I hate the Patriots, I just didn’t want to see Emperor Bellichik and his loyal servant Darth Brady hoisting the Lombardi Trophy while red, white and blue confetti rained down upon them. (Okay I admit it, I hate the Patriots…and yes, I am a jealous Bengals fan!)

That was before a thrilling NFC championship game ended with a Colin Kaepernick pass being swatted away in the corner of the end zone. The play itself was a fitting end to a great game. With the clock running down to the wire and the Seahawks Super Bowl aspirations on the line, a great player, Richard Sherman, made a great play. The game ended, the curtains closed, the metaphorical fat lady sang. But then a twenty second interview changed everything. Richard Sherman declared himself “the best corner in the game” and called his main competition, 49ers wideout, Michael Crabtree, “a sorry receiver”, all while screaming at the leggy Erin Andrews (and the camera) like she’d just punched his dear sweet mother in the face.

The Play

The Rant

Upon seeing the rant on live TV, I immediately shot off a simple text to one of my buddies containing only two words “Go Broncos.” Just like that, a new Sith Lord had emerged and I had a team to root against.

I suspect that many in the TV audience had a similar reaction to mine (that was a fine display of hubris after all) and immediately began praying that Richard “Dick” Sherman would be served a heaping slice of humble pie. Others simply labeled him a “thug.”

Hit the pause button for a moment. Before I move on to real point I will be attempting to make, let me give you a little info about Mr. Sherman.

He is a Dentist in Sydney, Australia who once kidnapped a young clown fish named Nemo.

No?

Oh! Sorry about that. I accidently clicked on the wrong Wikipedia page.

The real stuff:

Richard Sherman grew up in a rough neighborhood in Compton (aren’t they all rough in Compton?) then later attended Stanford University where he excelled in both Football and Track. He graduated with a degree in Communications (take that liberal arts!) and was eventually drafted in the fifth round of the 2011 NFL Draft by the Sea Hawks. In his three years in the league he has shown himself to be a very good corner (20 interceptions in three seasons) and has proven many of his doubters wrong. He has also had highly publicized (at least on ESPN) twitter wars with other NFL defensive backs Darrell Revis and Joe Haden, publicly mocked Darth Brady (I actually liked that one) and once told an ESPN gas bag (Skip Bayless) that he was “better at life than him.”

And then came the rant.

Tricky Dick has since apologized (sort of). But has made it clear that he doesn’t appreciate being called a “Thug” and has claimed that it is just a politically correct synonym for the N-Word. I’ll admit it, I have used the term “thug” to describe particular unsavory or questionable characters (i.e. the bad guys in Double Dragon) but I never equated it with a single ethnicity or even considered it to carry the weighty implications of the N-Word. (The use of the N-Word is a topic that I will leave to Quentin Tarantino and Spike Lee to bicker over).

Now to the point. Is the term “Thug” is an apt label for Richard Sherman?

Let’s have a look see.

Mr. Webster (not the adorable character played by Emmanuel Lewis) defines a thug as a “violent criminal or brutal ruffian.”

Were Mr. Sherman’s actions criminal?

No.

Was he acting like a brutal ruffian?

Since he wasn’t in a turn of the century one room school house, I’m going to say no to that one.