Okay. I can see where a team might have a culture, but I don't see how a team is responsible for players having sex with women they'd brought across state lines for the purpose, doing it in front of the crew, and even offering to pay female crew members to dance for them (in some ways, this is the most disturbing piece to me, since it involves innocent people), to the point where the crew felt scared.
We're forgetting something: Athletes are responsible for their own behavior. The notion that the coach should be held accountable for a sex party to which he was not invited is rather silly.
We are in a culture where a significant subset of athletes believe they don't have to follow the rules. They believe that special treatment, including special sexual treatment, is an expected benefit to their performance. Case in point:
--Michael Irvin, when he was caught by police in a hotel room with drugs and "freelance models," famously said as he was being arrested: "Don't you know who I am?"
--During the Colorado University rape scandal, one player denied his teammates committed the crime by saying: "We don't have to rape anybody. We're Big XII Champs!"
--I forget which NBA video game it was...but there was a game where, as you get better as a player, you could "buy" attractive women with the money/points you earned.
How much of this is societal, and how much comes back to the player? In a way, we're all to blame for creating the atmosphere in which the Vikings' Love Boat Cruise is possible. But anyone who believes they can ask a stranger to dance for money before screwing somebody in front of that stranger is responsible for his own behavior, even if it's in part a product of a sick society.
Anyway, the last word on this should go to BatGirl, who, as usual, has a commentary on this that makes me laugh out loud:
[BatGirl] was totally relieved to see this headline in the morning's Strib:
Tice Will Crack Down on Tardiness, Rule Breakers
Next time you guys have a big sex party and totally screw Batgirl's hopes for Legovision Park, BE ON TIME.
3 comments:
LOL...well, being very close to the situation, what is being said is that since the players don't have respect for Tice & the Vikings they do things like this. If you had a hard ass like Tom Coughlin this behavior would not go over real well. The players think Tice is quitting on them, which may be true. He's gone at the end of the season and this is just one more reason why. I don't think Zygi really knew what he was getting into...now you have Tags demanding that he gets a security force together, like, yesterday.
The real sad thing - this pretty much kills their chance for getting stadium financing...
Shannin, I think you've missed the point.
Let's imagine that some co-workers and I don't like my principal. She allows us to basically get away with murder--talk smack to students, teach poorly, show up late and leave early, etc. We don't show her any respect.
One weekend, my co-workers and I hire a boat. We act in a manner that is completely out of line for any adult, and is in fact illegal.
How is what happened on the boat in any way my principal's fault? And why is it my principal's responsibility to keep me off of the boat, and to keep my pants on when I'm there?
What's the difference between Mike Tice's (or Tom Coughlin's) role in his players' lives and my principal's role in mine?
I say none. Players are responsible for their criminal behavior. Not their coaches.
Mike Tice may not be a very good coach, but to say he's responsible for this is quite simply to deny that people are responsible for their own actions. That bothers me.
Oh, I agree that Tice isn't responsible for the players' actions. The perception is that if he was a hard ass the players wouldn't "get out of line."
Jimmy Johnson wasn't responsible for the White House in Dallas, but it was thought that his permissive stance condoned that kind of behavior...
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