Earlier this week, Jews all over the world celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the “head” of the Hebrew year. Just like many people do every January 1, Jewish people make “resolutions” each Rosh Hashanah. I happen to be no different. What’s my “resolution”? Basically to remind the rest of the world that I’m not dead yet and still have thoughts to share and principles to stand up for while I’m still alive and mentally functional.
One can think about lots of things during time away from blogging, but it’s no longer conceivable to write monstrous columns to cover all the bases and make up for lost time. So, for the sake of focus, efficiency and self-preservation, I’m going to write about one specific issue, state my thoughts and be done with it until the world hears from me again.
Well, this column’s issue addresses the intersection between stupidity and hypocrisy, one of my favorite issues to write about. Oh sure, stupidity and hypocrisy exist in so many ways, but our chat focuses on the special way foot-in-mouth disease brings out stupidity and hypocrisy in their purest forms, and what better examples of pure stupidity and hypocrisy are there than Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano. Talk about hitting the Daily Double!
In case you’ve lost track of current events while agonizing over MLB divisional and wild-card races, or the eventual outcome of BountyGate, or replacement officials in the NFL, or when Tim Tebow will part the Hudson River, Governor Romney, back in May, schmoozed with aristocrats in Boca Raton, Florida at a $50,000/plate dinner. Governor Romney, unaware a hidden video camera was near his podium, decided it made sense to schmooze “off the cuff” and... Wait! You’re gonna love it!... Told a roomful of rich white Floridians that he had no use for 47 percent of the voting public, because those folks didn’t pay any federal income taxes and were irreversibly and unconditionally aligned to and voting for President Barack Obama. I know... Ain’t it a hoot?! But wait... It gets better!
Governor Romney characterized that 47 percent as “believing that they are victims... dependent upon government... Believing government has a responsibility to care for them... Believing that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it... Entitlement... Blah, blah, blah... Government should give it to them.” And as if the violins needed queuing, Governor Romney lamented: “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” But alas, he has a change of heart during an appearance on Univision and proclaims he’s running a presidential campaign on behalf of 100 percent of Americans, whatever the hell that means at any random moment in his campaign.
Geez... If only the Hallmark Channel could produce movies so touching...
If you’ve seriously followed this train wreck of a presidential campaign since the GOP debates and primaries, you already know the former governor of Massachusetts is the epitome of contradiction, hypocrisy, and flaming rhetoric. Governor Romney is against the Affordable Health Care Act (affectionately referred to as “Obamacare”), but he created the same program for all the citizens of his state long before President Obama even ran for the Illinois state senate, and the governor apparently enjoys being known as the “Grandfather of Obamacare” when it suits his convenience.
Governor Romney believes in self-deportation of illegal immigrants, but would “like to staple a green card to every Ph.D. in the world and say ‘Come to America, we want you here.’” The governor also enjoys boasting about his Mexican-born grandfather every chance he gets, yet he’s less effusive regarding his several foreign bank accounts.
Governor Romney was dead-set against the auto industry bailout, but he loves to remind people that he owns a few General Motors vehicles and his wife drives “a couple of Cadillacs, actually.”
Governor Romney sees no use for the Environmental Protection Agency, but he likes it when “all the trees are the right height” in his home state of Michigan. Governor Romney, by the way, calls Michigan his home state, but he was governor of Massachusetts and owns homes in Florida, Utah and California.
Governor Romney “likes firing people”, but aside from his one term as governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007), he’s been perpetually unemployed longer than any individual I know. I’m curious to know what he writes for “Occupation/Profession” on his federal income tax returns... Aspiring Oligarch?! International Financier?! You figure he has to claim a creative title to reflect a personal tax rate of 13-14 percent on an annual income approaching $15 million, right?
Governor Romney accused all of his GOP primary challengers of running smear campaigns against him while his own super pac loyalists firebombed all challengers with scathing TV ads... To think folks called Arnold Swarzenegger “Governator”! And Mr. Romney will bet you 10 grand his hands were completely clean on these dirty political stunts!
Most inflaming and hypocritical of all, Governor Romney tells President Obama to take his “campaign of hate, divisiveness and class warfare back to Chicago” while spewing his own brand of hate, divisiveness and class warfare. Hate? What hate? the disingenuous governor wonders. Mr. Romney trails in most polls these days to a president categorized as “non-American, fraud, apologist, terrorist sympathizer, socialist, redistributionist...” and it likely eats at Mr. Romney, his supporters and fellow Republicans that he’s trailing a human being they deem unworthy to be more than a shoe-shiner. When a wealthy white political candidate publicly proclaims that our nation’s first multi-racial president “go back to where he came from”, only a complete idiot wouldn’t recognize that Chicago was not the first place on Mr. Romney’s mind, just like it isn’t on Sarah Palin’s mind, Donald Trump’s mind, or Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell’s mind.
President Obama doesn’t get a complete pass on things either. Despite inheriting a complete mess from the Bush-43 administration in January 2009 and working against congressional Republicans hell-bent on sending our nation down the toilet for the sake of partisanship, he hasn’t thrown enough counterpunches when opponents attacked, nor has he pushed hard enough on key reforms in order to placate opposition. Yes, it rubs me wrong that he attends $40,000/plate fundraisers in Manhattan for his re-election campaign (I guess it costs $10,000 more to entertain wealthy bigots in Boca Raton?). Yes, he could’ve done much more during his first term, but he’s done far from nothing, the modus operandi of congressional Republicans. All things considered, at least he’s tried his damnedest to be everyone’s president and keep us from completely circling the drain, and at least gets my vote for a second term to continue our painful recovery.
Somehow this election is supposed to be about our nation’s struggling economy. Mr. Romney, in a September 19 Op-Ed to USA TODAY, promises to “deliver recovery, not dependency” and “policies [that] foster mobility.” In fact, from the very first words of Mr. Romney’s Op-Ed, he states: “Since our founding, America has promoted personal responsibility, the dignity of work and the value of education. These values made our nation the hope of the earth and out economy the envy of the world. Efforts that promote hard work and personal responsibility over government dependency make America strong. When the economy is growing and Americans are working, everyone involved has a shared sense of achievement, not to mention the basic sense of pride that comes with the paycheck they earn.”
Have I missed something within this preamble to another specifics-lacking self-pontification by Mr. Romney, but are these not the words of a man who himself has not earned a single paycheck since January 2007? What hard work has this individual been engaged in these past 69 months besides spending his personal fortune trying to convince American voters he deserves to be elected leader of the free world? C’mon, who’s kidding who here? I haven’t worked full-time in any academic position since my spinal injury in November 2006; applying Mr. Romney’s logic, I’m qualified to be Penn State’s next president.
Now, don’t get me wrong... Even as a staunch Democrat, I do see merit in many of Mr. Romney’s points. I do agree that our nation’s economic recovery has been too slow, that we need a LOT of new jobs, and good-paying jobs, in order to stimulate the economy, that the goal of every individual citizen should be personal responsibility and accomplishment, and that the fruits of your own labor taste a lot sweeter than if handed to you on the basis of bureaucratic technicality. And, yes, I do agree that lazy people indeed exist within our society, but my definition of “lazy” may be significantly different from “lazy” defined by angry white America.
I don’t, however, agree that the private sector is any more important or special than the public sector (and vice-versa). I don’t see why our economy can’t grow and thrive with job expansion by both sectors. I don’t agree that our nation is the hope of the world, nor do I agree that our economy is the envy of the world, because that arrogantly presumes every other country in the world is shit (pardon my language), and I do think that reflects well on a great country... Not the greatest country, but a great country. Most importantly, a paycheck may bring a sense of pride and accomplishment, but it’s not the ultimate measure of achievement or work. A paycheck in itself represents currency and purchasing power, and right now there are too many Americans “earning” paychecks of minimal currency and little purchasing power. How much pride people feel when the worth of their paycheck represents a choice between food on the table or gas in the car or any number of basic necessities is something I seriously doubt Mr. Romney comprehends or empathizes with, and that raises some serious philosophical questions about “work” and “paycheck.”
For example, I don’t earn one penny for writing this blog column, nor have I ever sought payment for my columns, but any of my columns represent work to me as I engage my mind and hands. In fact, it’s hard work and physically painful and exhausting, even with the benefit of a morphine pump surgically implanted inside my abdomen. When I can complete a column and see that it’s cohesive and coherent, I take pride and consider it one more accomplishment, albeit small, in my life. Yes, as meaningless as my columns may seem to the world, each new column is a small victory for me, keeping me alive and engaged one more day.
Do my columns stimulate the economy? Heck, I’m not even sure they stimulate my readership; it’s not like feedback comes back to me with regularity. But I hope a column stimulates thinking by a few folks and perhaps encourages folks to check out my books and buy them. It’s not a lot, but the royalties do constitute income, income I ultimately reinvest into my life and self-sustenance, my ongoing work and advocacy efforts, my health care, and our economy... Oh! And that income ultimately counts towards my federal income tax return.
Returning to Mr. Romney’s rhetoric about lazy people — i.e., moochers — the 47 percent who don’t pay federal income taxes and represent some undesirable segment of the American electorate, or at least Mitt Romney’s version of the American electorate still having a legal right to vote. We know exactly whom Mr. Romney thinks he’s referring to when he serves sociocultural red meat to the hoi-polloi of Boca Raton. He thinks he’s using slick code language to refer to the stereotypical low-income, racial minorities of the Welfare State, or any Norman Lear sitcom from the 1970s... Too unskilled to employ, too lazy to motivate or elevate, and too eager to accept public housing, food stamps, Medicaid and any other “freebies” the government is handing out. And that’s the key component in Mitt Romney’s vision of a broken America... The hand-out, the one-way flow of taxpayer dollars from bureaucracy to society’s dregs, slackers, and losers. Is it no wonder pundits like David Brooks and Chris Matthews view Mr. Romney as a real-life version of Thurston B. Howell from “Gilligan’s Island”? As I’ve opined many times before, is it no wonder peasants marched upon King Louis XVI’s castle with torches and pitchforks during the French Revolution?
Sorry to burst the arrogant bubble of people at the top of our nation’s pyramid, but their DNA is no better than anyone else’s, including yours and mine. Whether I’m disabled or able-bodied, employed in academia or making my efforts from home, I still consider myself an equal member of the human race and American society, no matter how many rich nitwits think they could buy and sell me a thousand times over. President Obama and First-Lady Michelle Obama both reminded us last month from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, that the size of our paychecks is meaningless compared to the jobs we do to earn those paychecks. Anybody can make lots of money, but not everybody can make a positive contribution to society. People like Mitt Romney’s crowd in Boca Raton, however, equate money with human value, not because money helps the world, but because money enhances their private corner of the world. Does this sound like the worldview of a person aspiring to be president for 100 percent of Americans?
What’s so amazing about Mr. Romney’s offensive verbalizations is that his wife of 42 years deals with Multiple Sclerosis, and Mr. Romney gives a considerable amount of charity through the Mormon church. How do such personal experiences and practices correspond to such empathy tone-deafness? Some folks argue that Mr. Romney is a “compassionate conservative” trapped in a presidential candidate campaigning as a “severe conservative.” While there may be merit to that assessment, I suspect Mr. Romney is no different than many 21st century Americans in the sense that Mr. Romney’s empathy is limited to his localized universe. In other words, he has at least sixty years of experience interacting with and recognizing a very small and privileged segment of our global population, so why should he suddenly care beyond that segment simply on the basis of their existence? It’s not like they existed before in his personal universe, did they?
And that’s sort of a common shortcoming we all have as Americans or global citizens. We’re so conditioned to concepts of “charity begins at home”, “take care of your own”, and “strength within the community” that we often forget there will always, unfortunately, be human beings without homes, or without anyone taking care of them, or who aren’t part of a community. We forget that human suffering is sometimes entrenched or long-term, and whatever our assistance efforts, they’re too short-term or cosmetic relative to very complex needs. We forget that suffering, sadly, always exists all over the world.
And yet we text donations to the Red Cross after a natural disaster, thinking our contribution in response to a hurricane covers our “humanity credit” for any earthquakes or tsunamis. It’s neither easy nor fair. We can’t realistically text the ideal level of donation every time natural disasters occur, because disasters usually outpace our monetary generosity, unless we simply think nickel and dime pledging makes a genuine impact. We wonder if it’s acceptable to reach a statute of limitations or threshold on sympathy. It’s human nature to get impatient with all the “bad stuff” in our world, right? Perhaps, but it’s not necessarily the most positive reflection on us, is it? Then again, most of us are not highly public celebrities or aspiring national leaders, so we get more leeway than very wealthy and public people like Mr. Romney.
I can give Mr. Romney a limited benefit of the doubt, given his wife’s battle with MS. Perhaps it’s an unfair imposition to expect him to care about every MS patient in the world, or every person dealing with a neurological condition. After all, he’s living with an MS patient every day, and we can assume he’s doing his part on behalf of his wife. The same can be said regarding anything else he already donates charity towards. He donates to his own house of worship in order to help others suffering a spectrum of medical ills. We don’t specifically know how many individual “causes” Mr. Romney’s charitable donations serve; we only know how much money is donated according to his federal income tax returns.
In a way, aren’t we all caring about the world in similar ways? Do we donate for every cause, or do we pick and choose where we can make the most impact? Do we donate to all houses of worship or just our own? Limiting our contributions doesn’t make us selfish hypocrites, but ignoring, discounting or denigrating the suffering of others barely beyond the tip of one’s nose does. There’s a fundamental difference between saying “gee, I wish I was able to help more” and “I really don’t worry or care about them.” It’s unrealistic to expect any President of the United States to be able to help everybody in need, but it’s not unrealistic to expect a President of the United States to want to help everybody in need.
Mr. Romney brands President Obama as “The Food Stamp President.” Have the number of Americans seeking and qualifying for public assistance increased since the 2008 election? Yes, it has. Do racial minorities constitute the majority of Americans qualifying for public assistance? No, they don’t, despite Mr. Romney’s desire to use racial minorities as poster children for public assistance and a convenient wedge issue to alarm wealthy white Americans. Are Food Stamps even the largest federal expenditure among “entitlement” programs? No, not by a long shot. According to the United States Office of Management and Budget, in 2011, Food Stamps and other nutrition program benefits accounted for $96 billion, the sixth-largest expenditure, behind Social Security ($725B), Medicare ($480B), Medicaid ($275B), Federal employee retirement ($124B), and unemployment insurance ($117B), and just ahead of veterans benefits ($71B).
What do these expenditures mean? Poverty and starvation demand approximately seven times less of our federal resources compared to simply being a senior citizen and retired. In fact, the annual budget expenditure for people age 65 and older (i.e., Social Security and Medicare, combined) represents more than three times the annual budget expenditure for poverty (i.e., Food Stamps and Medicaid, combined). Unless I’m mistaken, senior citizens represent one of Mr. Romney’s better supporting voter groups. Ironically, this voter group represents nearly one-fifth of the Americans Mr. Romney considers moochers. Is this an example of biting the hand that feeds you? It certainly seems an odd way of appreciating a vital voting constituency.
Who makes up the remainder of Mr. Romney’s moochers? Poor people, whether they’re employed or not; poverty is a bureaucratic classification based on annual income and size of your household. What many people overlook is that college students employed for the purpose of funding their education can fall into this category as well as members of our nation’s armed forces serving abroad to protect our rights and freedom. So, not only is Mr. Romney spitting on elderly voters, he’s spreading — no, make that redistributing -- the spit towards young voters who are new election process participants and the majority of absentee voters rising life for the rest of us. Golly, that’s gratitude for us, isn’t it?
Unless I’m mistaken, yet again, most Americans are eligible for Social Security and Medicare on the basis of years of employment, earning a paycheck, and paying into this safety net system through payroll withholdings. I’m under 65, yet receive Social Security and Medicare benefits on the basis of being permanently disabled and having paid into the system for 32 years of employment. Does this make me a moocher? My being non-employed is not voluntary. I’d certainly rather be back at a university full-time, doing what I did for 25 years prior to my spinal injury: teaching, helping young adults mature intellectually, and contributing to the growth of my academic community.
According to my 2011 federal income tax returns, I had an Adjusted Gross Income of $12,248 and paid $1,449 in federal income taxes, an effective tax rate of almost 12 percent, quite comparable to Mr. Romney’s. So, am I among the mooching 47 percent or the acceptable 53 percent? It’s not so clear-cut to me... I’m no longer employed on the basis of disability, I receive Social Security and Medicare benefits, I also receive $30/month in Food Stamps as well as other forms of public assistance towards utility bills, AND I pay federal income taxes, yet I’m likely a moocher in Mr. Romney’s view because I depend on the government to provide me money to house myself, feed myself, bathe and clothe myself, transport myself to medical providers, and keep myself alive. Do I expect these governmental benefits? Yes, I do. After 32 years of hard work and service, I should be able to live safely and comfortably — not regally — without having to wonder if my basic needs are being met on a monthly basis. The sobering reality is that my basic needs are not being met, because what I receive from the government isn’t enough to cover all my basic needs. Basic needs are not luxuries, and if politicians are telling us Social Security and Medicare recipients are living in luxury, they clearly haven’t visited me. There’s no perpetual money tree in my back yard, nor am I in possession of a winning lottery ticket yet to be cashed. I live check to check, just like a growing number of Americans exhausting funds to maintain the basics, wondering if groceries or medications will be a luxury. This is a reality Mr. Romney and his supporters cannot comprehend, because they’ve never lived life without a safety net or foundation. Mr. Romney has managed to enjoy and maintain a very lavish lifestyle in spite of being unemployed since January 2007. If he and his supporters can live this way, they’re unable to understand or tolerate people who can’t. They’re offended by the mere existence of people who can’t and propose socioeconomic engineering designed to elicit apology from people who have been repeatedly decimated by the Great Recession and other circumstances.
Ask yourselves: is Mitt Romney’s America ever going to help the decimated people reach a full recovery? No, it won’t, because everyone will need support just to regain an economic floor to build from, and Mr. Romney fails to understand why so many people lack that floor to begin with.
If Mr. Romney expecting some sort of apology from me, he’ll have a long wait. I can’t apologize for circumstances I never created, nor can I apologize for being in difficult circumstances. That’s as ridiculous an expectation as demanding apology from a child for contracting a cold, or an elderly person for aging. We’re not machines that never get sick or injured. We don’t live life in bubble wrap. But we clearly have a man running for President after years of living in his own bubble. With absolutely no apologies to Mr. Romney and his constituency of wealthy bigots, our nation was founded on the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and those inalienable rights belong to everyone, not just those supporting the political aspirations of Mitt Romney or his socioeconomic class.
The sad irony is that my vote was still open and available to Mr. Romney a few months ago, before he decided to alienate every last person not of his ilk. Yes, I entertained the thought of voting for Mr. Romney, but not anymore. Am I better off than I was four years ago? It depends on the criteria contextualizing that question, but in the grand scheme of how my life has evolved since 2008, I’d have to say life overall in 2012 is significantly better. That hardly means I’m satisfied, and I was open to what Mr. Romney had to say and offer, which ultimately has been squat with a side order of insult.
In a democratic society, it’s really not my place to advise or influence anyone else’s vote. Everyone should vote honestly and according to their own view and values. Speaking only for myself, and as an example of what Mitt Romney considers wrong with America, I cannot, in good conscience, vote for him... Not because he’s wealthy. Not because his primary agenda involves preserving wealth among the wealthy. Not even because he considers people like me an example of what’s wrong for America’s economic future. I cannot vote for him because he sees no value or place for me in his vision of America’s economic future, and as someone living life from a wheelchair who believes life from a wheelchair can still have meaning, value and contributable worth, this is a deal-breaker when it comes to electing our nation’s president. One cannot see forward or see possibilities when your head is hidden so far up your ass.
Well, Governor Pot, meet Coach Kettle...
Speaking of hypocrisy, heads up asses and the inability to see forward, I introduce you all to Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano, formerly the head football coach at Rutgers University. Coach Schiano’s a classic “Jersey guy”... In fact, for those who are not big sports fans, the best way to describe Coach Schiano is to imagine what Governor Chris Christie would be like after Weight Watchers.
In case you didn’t know, Coach Schiano had a rather heated difference of opinion with New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin after the conclusion of this past Sunday’s game at MetLife Stadium. To summarize the salient points, Schiano’s Bucs blew a 27-13 lead and lost 41-34, courtesy of Giants quarterback Eli Manning’s 510 yards passing and three touchdown passes. On the final play of the game, with five seconds left, Manning took the snap from center to complete a kneel down play and run out the clock. Either hoping for some incredible miracle or acting out frustration, Schiano ordered his defensive linemen to fire out towards the Giants offensive linemen and try to create a fumble during the snap exchange. No fumble resulted, but a few Giants linemen fell backwards into Manning and knocked him on his back while he was already on one knee. Since the “extra contact” with the quarterback came from guys on his own team, hitting Manning wasn’t illegal, event though it wasn’t exactly kosher. In other words, an “unwritten rule” was violated, sort of the equivalent to assassinating someone after a cease-fire order.
As a former football player, not to mention former Buccaneer, I’m not going to debate the pros and cons of unwritten rules, because I do see merit to both sides of the argument regarding the play in question. However, I am going to state my opinion regarding the aftermath that ensued between Schiano and Coughlin. In short, Schiano acted like an ass towards Coughlin during post-game interactions as well as towards the media during his press conference, and whatever positive message Schiano intended regarding a change in how the Buccaneers play competitive football, he completely negated it with total disregard for player safety.
Ah... Player safety, that ominous term hovering over the NFL like a litigation albatross. Yes, while the NFL braces itself for the class action suit of all time regarding post-career neurological damage, here comes Coach Schiano and his “tough play and hard hits are part of the game” mantra. Better yet, he snidely reminds everyone that blowing into knell-down formations was a regular practice at Rutgers, and it actually resulted in successful fumble recoveries on a few occasions. Having played football against Rutgers over thirty years ago, I can honestly say that no one’ impressed with these fumble recoveries or the prowess of Rutgers football players to cause such fumbles. In other words, who cares?! It’s Rutgers! Lest I remind everyone that Coach Schiano’s predecessor in Tampa Bay was a wonderful, well-intentioned young man named Raheem Morris, the former head coach at Hofstra University (FYI: Hofstra no longer has a football program due to budgetary issues). Coach Morris had lots of spunk and tough play ideals too... And he lasted two seasons before ownership gave him a pink slip. Key point to the lesson: stuff that works at the college level doesn’t necessarily fly at the professional level, including borderline cheap shots during kneel-down plays. If you’re gonna pull that stuff on other teams, other teams will eventually return the favor and bust up your quarterback, and that’s how the NFL is often referred to as “Not for Long” when it comes to coaching careers.
Fortunately, for everyone involved, the Giants didn’t fumble or recreate the infamous 1978 “Miracle in the Meadowlands” and no player on either team suffered a significant injury. But what happens if someone did? Think for a moment what would happen if a submarining Buccaneer defensive player hit a Giant offensive lineman with enough force to go backwards into Eli Manning’s leg and break it, or tear up a knee? In a split second, the Giants season is completely changed and Manning’s career potentially ruined. Not only does this hurt the Giants on the field, it also hurts at the box office as a team without its marquee player plays the rest of the season in a half-empty stadium and on television to a fraction of loyal fans. Fewer fans at the stadium kills revenue. Fewer fans watching on TV kills ratings and network revenue. A really bad season potentially kills local business revenue in terms of selling team jerseys and other clothing items not to mention local restaurants. In fact, the only positive outcome in the event of Eli Manning suffering a season-ending injury is less traffic congestion in East Rutherford.
Look, injuries happen and are unfortunately part of the game; who better than me to tell you this. Well, guess what? Who better than Coach Schiano to tell you this as well? As irony always makes an appearance in sports, last Sunday’s game was the very first time Coach Schiano ever set foot on the field of MetLife Stadium since October 2010, when one of his own Rutgers players, Eric LeGrand, suffered a paralyzing injury while tackling a player from Army’s football team. Of all football coaches, Greg Schiano should know better than anyone about the risk of injury on a football field, and yet, this very coach showed zero sensitivity towards the safety of an opposing player, and a marquee player at that.
I’m not going to discuss Eric LeGrand’s life since his injury other than the fact that he’s become a far bigger celebrity in a wheelchair than he likely might’ve been as a football player, something that troubles me to no end. Certainly worthy of a future column, I can’t help but wonder if Eric LeGrand would be experiencing the same amount of national attention if he became paralyzed slipping on a bar of soap in the shower, or falling off a ladder, or being involved in a motor vehicle accident, or if he was playing a football game not televised by ESPN. Time may ultimately answer my nagging questions when another 20-year-old college football player fractures a cervical vertebra under less public circumstances, like recently injured Tulane defensive back Devon Walker.
Eric LeGrand’s new-found celebrity perhaps skews Coach Schiano’s perspective on injuries in football. Schiano admires LeGrand (an honorary Buccaneer, by the way) on such a grand level, gushing to the media about LeGrand’s book deals, radio gigs, TV appearances, telling the New York Daily News: “He’s really redirected his energy to his rehab and his future career.” What career?! LeGrand hadn’t even completed his junior year yet at Rutgers before he was injured; now he’s a media sensation. If Eric LeGrand never suffered an injury, he’d likely be a mid-round draft prospect at linebacker and possibly have completed his bachelors degree in communications. In other words, if it wasn’t for a very public and catastrophic injury, Eric LeGrand might be another struggling 23-year-old man trying to make the transition to adult contributor to our economy after four years of college. Eric LeGrand is the beneficiary of a sports culture that somehow became obligated to him, but I’m sure this is not the path this young man envisioned for himself at this stage of life.
That being said, Coach Schiano needs to understand that catastrophic career-ending football injuries don’t always end with a player receiving a lifetime of celebrity, attention and financial opportunity. What about Chucky Mullins who faded away in obscurity until death? How many people remember Mike Utley or Marc Buoniconti? How many people regularly see media stories about former players who recovered from paralysis, like Dennis Byrd or Adam Taliaferro? What about former athletes who are paralyzed but not as a result of football, like Tommy Urbanski? Perhaps Coach Schiano fails to understand that professional football players aren’t cheap and expendable like in the college ranks, and one major injury on a 53-man roster is more damaging to the success of a franchise than one major injury among 85 scholarship recipients. Regardless, Coach Schiano should respect the safety and well-being of every player, collegiate or professional, paid millions or merely receiving tuition and board, wearing your team’s uniform or the uniform of your opponent. Eric LeGrand’s injury supposedly affected Schiano so profoundly he still struggles for words when interviewed about it. If one young player’s injury could be that impactful, how could Schiano be so cavalier about potential injury to an opposing player? Is it because injuries matter only if suffered by your guys? Is Schiano’s sense of sportsmanship and empathy limited to his own team colors? Does Coach Schiano view NFL players through the same 47 percent prism Mitt Romney views American voters? The possible parallel is highly disturbing.
Mitt Romney can get away with such exclusionary thinking because we’ll likely never see him run for elected office as anything other than a Republican. On the other hand, Greg Schiano is a football coach, an athletic mercenary in a sport where loyalty and longevity are short-lived even though football players and coaches belong to a brotherhood created by competition. The Rutgers colors of 2011 become Buccaneer colors in 2012, and perhaps become colors of a different collegiate or professional organization in 2013, 2014 or some other year in the near future. If ever the day comes when Schiano interviews to wear the colors of the New York Giants, perhaps the organization should first inquire about his belief system regarding safety, injuries and kneel-down plays.
The world can be a much better place when we all care about each other regardless of our affiliations and beliefs.
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