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Don't be so quick to make McNair a hero
by Jason Whitlock
We can quit calling Steve McNair a great leader now. Leadership starts at home.
And I'm no longer all that interested in hearing about the community service work McNair did in Tennessee and Mississippi. Service to community begins at home, too
If you read this column regularly, you know I'm not the morality police, you know I'm far from bothered by McNair's May-December romance and you probably should've surmised I get my "Becky on" from time to time.
Stop reading now if your preference is sugar-coated, politically-correct, phony-ass pontificating. You can find plenty of that garbage littering the Internet.
I'm going to get knee deep in this Steve McNair tragedy and what it really signifies.
Until the police wrap up their investigation, I'm only willing to acknowledge four victims — McNair's four sons.
I don't know how to classify the adults in this saga — McNair, his wife Mechelle or his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel "Jenny" Kazemi.
The kids, they're victims of two horrific crimes: 1. the murder of their father; 2. their father's apparent abandonment so that he had time to wine, dine, vacation and shack up with his jump-off.
Let me repeat, I'm not some sanctimonious moralizer.
Personally, I prefer June-December romances, but a blossoming May flower certainly could be fertilized into a special, 28-year-old bouquet by a patient and attentive gardener.
As for the life-experience, station-in-life disparity between a retired millionaire quarterback and a Dave & Buster's waitress, well, let he who has never Captained cast the first hoe.
Every man I know has a little Captain in him. We see a pretty young thang working her way through nursing or cosmetology school and it's just in our nature to pay a cellphone bill, a car note or get her nails done.
It's what we do. And if you've earned a chunk of change in professional sports or in corporate America, you might buy a big black Escalade in her name, fly her to Vegas or go parasailing over the ocean.
It's not a black or white thing. It's not an athlete thing. It's a man thing we haven't been able to shake since Eve gave us an apple.
The look of pure, unadulterated joy on McNair's face captured as he and Jenny parasailed is one every real man recognizes as the uncontrollable feeling of elation that gushes through the male, middle-aged body when he finds the Tenderoni Bobby Brown sang about.
Do not read this as me condoning McNair's extramarital affair. I'm not.
But we don't know the nature of Steve and Mechelle McNair's relationship. We don't know what made them happy, what agreement they reached or what was transpiring in their marriage.
What we do know is that McNair had four sons. And based on the observations and comments of Kazemi's neighbors and neighbors at the condominium McNair rented, McNair spent so much time with Kazemi over the past few months that people assumed they lived together.
You see, this is my problem with McNair, with American men as a whole.
We shirk our responsibilities as fathers. We don't have time for it. We think it's a part- or no-time job. We think our career is more important. We think charity work is more important. We think some young tail is more important.
We foolishly believe we're unnecessary in the rearing of children. This mindset must die.
I pass no judgment on McNair kicking it with a woman 16 years his junior. I don't agree with it, but I pass no judgment on McNair "cheating" on his wife.
However, I think it's ridiculous and embarrassing that he spent so much time chasing after a Nashville waitress that he created the impression he lived with her.
Many have tried, but you can't maintain two homes, two families. If HBO has shown us anything, it's that kids are the losers when it comes to Big Love.
You can't live with a waitress in a condo/apartment, take her parasailing, clubbing, to Vegas and raise a brood of boys living in a home on the other side of town.
Kids are game-changers. Kids require sacrifice. Kids are a daily and sometimes hourly responsibility. You don't properly raise them in your spare time with money, fame, gifts and glowing newspaper and magazine stories about your courage to play on Sundays despite injury and pain.
Steve McNair sounds like a warrior who fought the wrong war. He won a public-relations battle.
He was so popular in Nashville that when his under-drinking-age "Becky" got popped driving her mistress ransom while drunk and/or high the police called a cab to give McNair, the Escalade passenger, a ride home.
This is the privilege of fame and inclusion in the boys club. We're so mentally diseased that we instinctively feel empathy and envy when we see a married father of four liquored up with his near-teenage girlfriend.
You know what the cop was thinking:
But for the grace of God, two-tenths of a second on my 40 time and the high school coach who made me play tight end rather than receiver, there go I.
Steve McNair was flawed in the same way as most American men.
Too many men think financial success is their primary and most important contribution to a relationship with their kids, wives and/or girlfriends. A grown woman has the right to settle for that. Children shouldn't have to settle for anything less than their father's very best effort.
Don't be so quick to make McNair a hero
by Jason Whitlock
We can quit calling Steve McNair a great leader now. Leadership starts at home.
And I'm no longer all that interested in hearing about the community service work McNair did in Tennessee and Mississippi. Service to community begins at home, too
If you read this column regularly, you know I'm not the morality police, you know I'm far from bothered by McNair's May-December romance and you probably should've surmised I get my "Becky on" from time to time.
Stop reading now if your preference is sugar-coated, politically-correct, phony-ass pontificating. You can find plenty of that garbage littering the Internet.
I'm going to get knee deep in this Steve McNair tragedy and what it really signifies.
Until the police wrap up their investigation, I'm only willing to acknowledge four victims — McNair's four sons.
I don't know how to classify the adults in this saga — McNair, his wife Mechelle or his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel "Jenny" Kazemi.
The kids, they're victims of two horrific crimes: 1. the murder of their father; 2. their father's apparent abandonment so that he had time to wine, dine, vacation and shack up with his jump-off.
Let me repeat, I'm not some sanctimonious moralizer.
Personally, I prefer June-December romances, but a blossoming May flower certainly could be fertilized into a special, 28-year-old bouquet by a patient and attentive gardener.
As for the life-experience, station-in-life disparity between a retired millionaire quarterback and a Dave & Buster's waitress, well, let he who has never Captained cast the first hoe.
Every man I know has a little Captain in him. We see a pretty young thang working her way through nursing or cosmetology school and it's just in our nature to pay a cellphone bill, a car note or get her nails done.
It's what we do. And if you've earned a chunk of change in professional sports or in corporate America, you might buy a big black Escalade in her name, fly her to Vegas or go parasailing over the ocean.
It's not a black or white thing. It's not an athlete thing. It's a man thing we haven't been able to shake since Eve gave us an apple.
The look of pure, unadulterated joy on McNair's face captured as he and Jenny parasailed is one every real man recognizes as the uncontrollable feeling of elation that gushes through the male, middle-aged body when he finds the Tenderoni Bobby Brown sang about.
Do not read this as me condoning McNair's extramarital affair. I'm not.
But we don't know the nature of Steve and Mechelle McNair's relationship. We don't know what made them happy, what agreement they reached or what was transpiring in their marriage.
What we do know is that McNair had four sons. And based on the observations and comments of Kazemi's neighbors and neighbors at the condominium McNair rented, McNair spent so much time with Kazemi over the past few months that people assumed they lived together.
You see, this is my problem with McNair, with American men as a whole.
We shirk our responsibilities as fathers. We don't have time for it. We think it's a part- or no-time job. We think our career is more important. We think charity work is more important. We think some young tail is more important.
We foolishly believe we're unnecessary in the rearing of children. This mindset must die.
I pass no judgment on McNair kicking it with a woman 16 years his junior. I don't agree with it, but I pass no judgment on McNair "cheating" on his wife.
However, I think it's ridiculous and embarrassing that he spent so much time chasing after a Nashville waitress that he created the impression he lived with her.
Many have tried, but you can't maintain two homes, two families. If HBO has shown us anything, it's that kids are the losers when it comes to Big Love.
You can't live with a waitress in a condo/apartment, take her parasailing, clubbing, to Vegas and raise a brood of boys living in a home on the other side of town.
Kids are game-changers. Kids require sacrifice. Kids are a daily and sometimes hourly responsibility. You don't properly raise them in your spare time with money, fame, gifts and glowing newspaper and magazine stories about your courage to play on Sundays despite injury and pain.
Steve McNair sounds like a warrior who fought the wrong war. He won a public-relations battle.
He was so popular in Nashville that when his under-drinking-age "Becky" got popped driving her mistress ransom while drunk and/or high the police called a cab to give McNair, the Escalade passenger, a ride home.
This is the privilege of fame and inclusion in the boys club. We're so mentally diseased that we instinctively feel empathy and envy when we see a married father of four liquored up with his near-teenage girlfriend.
You know what the cop was thinking:
But for the grace of God, two-tenths of a second on my 40 time and the high school coach who made me play tight end rather than receiver, there go I.
Steve McNair was flawed in the same way as most American men.
Too many men think financial success is their primary and most important contribution to a relationship with their kids, wives and/or girlfriends. A grown woman has the right to settle for that. Children shouldn't have to settle for anything less than their father's very best effort.
My preference is respect for the dead and not writing an article 3 days after someone's death pretending to know what its like to be his kids. Dude got on his high horse at a really inappropriate time and tried to make an example of someone who's body hadn't even cooled down yet.
Just because Jason Whitlock is a sensationalist faggot who exploits the misfortunes of others and thinks Brett Favre is a god doesn't make him a good journalist. A good journalist has class and a valid opinion.
Just because Jason Whitlock is a sensationalist faggot who exploits the misfortunes of others and thinks Brett Favre is a god doesn't make him a good journalist. A good journalist has class and a valid opinion.
There's a difference between political correctness and class. As far as McNair is concerned, he had a valid opinion, but he did it at a real bad time.
He took McNair and he took Ted Thompson, and he threw both of them under the bus so that he could come up with an "outside the box" opinion that would piss a couple of people off so that he could get recognition. You don't talk about a guy right after he dies and be sick enough to say that you are doing it because you have his children's best interest in mind. And you don't throw Ted Thompson under the bus just to advance the (bad) opinion that Favre is clear cut MVP. Ted Thompson was right to not let Favre back, and Favre is not the clear cut MVP.
Witlock is a demagogue. He purposely says things to get people roused up so that his articles can gain recognition. He didn't write the McNair article because he gave a fuck about McNair banging some chick. He wrote the article because he know it would piss some people off and he could get some cheap notoriety.
And you bought into it.
He took McNair and he took Ted Thompson, and he threw both of them under the bus so that he could come up with an "outside the box" opinion that would piss a couple of people off so that he could get recognition. You don't talk about a guy right after he dies and be sick enough to say that you are doing it because you have his children's best interest in mind. And you don't throw Ted Thompson under the bus just to advance the (bad) opinion that Favre is clear cut MVP. Ted Thompson was right to not let Favre back, and Favre is not the clear cut MVP.
Witlock is a demagogue. He purposely says things to get people roused up so that his articles can gain recognition. He didn't write the McNair article because he gave a fuck about McNair banging some chick. He wrote the article because he know it would piss some people off and he could get some cheap notoriety.
And you bought into it.
even if that's his opinion it was disrespectful to write that article right after he died, when he a lot of people were still mourning his death
if he didn't think mcnair was a good person... that's fine... just don't write about him, at least not at that time
if someone who I never liked dies, I'm not gonna go to the funeral and give a eulogy about how I never liked them and they were a horrible person... I just won't go to the funeral
if he didn't think mcnair was a good person... that's fine... just don't write about him, at least not at that time
if someone who I never liked dies, I'm not gonna go to the funeral and give a eulogy about how I never liked them and they were a horrible person... I just won't go to the funeral
good, we got enough boring ass journalists who write about the same shit over and over and say the same thing just in a different way.
and the fact of the matter is, is the McNair died because he was messing with someone he never should had while he was married. I feel bad for his wife and children but not him, at all.
How is a journalist writing something about Ted Thompson "throwing him under the bus?" Its not like he had inside knowledge or was a confidant of Thomson. If you read the article he discusses more then just Thompson's decision to trade Favre, like how he had the most cap space two years straight and only signed Woodson, didnt trade for Moss and has allowed his team to have the worst o-line in the game.
and the fact of the matter is, is the McNair died because he was messing with someone he never should had while he was married. I feel bad for his wife and children but not him, at all.
How is a journalist writing something about Ted Thompson "throwing him under the bus?" Its not like he had inside knowledge or was a confidant of Thomson. If you read the article he discusses more then just Thompson's decision to trade Favre, like how he had the most cap space two years straight and only signed Woodson, didnt trade for Moss and has allowed his team to have the worst o-line in the game.
There could be reasons for that. Maybe it was mandated that Thompson could only spend so much. Maybe he didn't see any talent worth throwing money at. Maybe he was scared off by Moss like every other team in the NFL. Maybe the O-Line didn't work out.
All I know was that Favre WANTED to come back and play for Thompson, and if he even is trying to spite Thompson (which I bet he isn't and Whitlock is just talking out his ass), its SOLELY because Thompson wouldn't let him come back.
If Favre thought Thompson was the worst coach in all of football, why would he have fought so hard to play for him???
All I know was that Favre WANTED to come back and play for Thompson, and if he even is trying to spite Thompson (which I bet he isn't and Whitlock is just talking out his ass), its SOLELY because Thompson wouldn't let him come back.
If Favre thought Thompson was the worst coach in all of football, why would he have fought so hard to play for him???
well first of all, Thompson isn't the coach, he's Executive Vice President, General Manager and Director of Football Operations. That's ALOT of responsibility to have, and when his team plays bad, its on his shoulders.
If Thompson thought there wasn't any free agent worth signing the last 2 years then that proves how inept he is.
Is it not his job to make the o-line work? If it "doesn't work out" then he failed. O-line is the most important unit on a team and that's what you build your team on
If Thompson thought there wasn't any free agent worth signing the last 2 years then that proves how inept he is.
Is it not his job to make the o-line work? If it "doesn't work out" then he failed. O-line is the most important unit on a team and that's what you build your team on
I can't be bothered to read all that, but I'll just say that Favre is a dickhead, who thinks he can play retirement after every season. That shit is ANNOYING as fuck. That's probably the most logical reason Ted Thompson wanted to move forward with the franchise. Favre fucking retired. They made Rodgers the starting QB. It's Favre's fucking fault for retiring. The Packers didn't force him to retire. They just got sick of his waffling, and I don't blame them. Also, it's selfish for Favre to skip training camp, while everyone else is busting their ass. Just because he's almost 40 doesn't entitle him to miss training camp.
That said, you can't argue with Favre's performance. He's playing great, but the Packers made the right move to keep Rodgers the starter. How fair would it be to name him the starter, only to take it away from him because Favre changes his mind?
MVP at the halfway point, in my opinion, is either Manning or Brees.
That said, you can't argue with Favre's performance. He's playing great, but the Packers made the right move to keep Rodgers the starter. How fair would it be to name him the starter, only to take it away from him because Favre changes his mind?
MVP at the halfway point, in my opinion, is either Manning or Brees.