NFL Hypocrisy Draft

As I watched the 2016 NFL Draft and waited (like everyone else in the world watching it) to see what team was going to select LaremyTunsil, I couldn’t help but think what a hypocrisy the world of sports really is. My beliefs have nothing to do with how I feel about smoking weed or players taking money from coaches and alumni while in college. It has everything to do with the emphasis society and the powers that be (NCAA administrators, coaches, media analysts, professional sports administrators, etc...) put on the character of young people, yet give passes to the transgressions of grown adults that were hired to mold the character of the players we criticize.  

As Tunsil fell from a projected #1 pick to the #13 overall first round pick, so did his salary. By no means am I saying this young man should have known better, but I know I did at a younger age than he was in that video and yet I did some very remorseful things. I knew better, but I underage drank! I smoke weed as a minor! I smoke a cigarette! All these things I knew I wasn’t supposed to do, but I did them anyway. Why? I was trying to be cool and thought that trying these things would make me look like I was. Was it fun? Not really, but at the moment I thought they were. Fast forward to today and I can honestly say, “Thank You, Lord!” that I made it through that period of my life unscathed and with all my faculties.

While I got to live my youthful years free from social media, todays’ youth don’t have that luxury. They have to walk the fine line and pretend to be perfect when no one else is. They have to say and do the right thing or be subject to criticism from adults like myself that lived their teen and college years free from the social microscope; as they collect their enormous salaries for administrating, coaching, or commentating a kids’ sport and give passes to their fellow colleagues that are doing way more juvenile and treacherous acts than smoking weed, yet are supposed to be (or should I say “should be”) held to a higher standard than the young, immature athlete.

Unfortunately, no one amongst those elite circles will speak out for Tunsil or anyone like him, which are all the high school and college athletes in the world, because they don’t want that money to stop coming in. They would rather say that Tunsil has character issues, because he smoked weed, yet at the same time take a picture with former POTUS Bill Clinton. That’s right, I forgot. He didn’t inhale nor did he have sexual relations with that woman.