There were those awful scenes in the Ray Rice video. Then Greg Hardy was suspended for allegedly committing a similar violent act, on the heels of Adrian Peterson receiving the same punishment for the reported physical abuse of his 4-year-old son.
And yet, amazingly and very sadly, four NCAA basketball players learned absolutely nothing from one or more of those frightening events.
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Not even what was supposed to be a friendly dance-off competition could keep Longwood forward
Shaquille Johnsonout of trouble when he reportedly
with a punch at a party on Aug. 31, months after the Rice and Hardy incidents were believed to have taken place.
Arrested more than a week later, on Sept. 9, the 20-year-old Johnson added to a rap sheet that included a marijuana possession charge, which was part of the reason for his earlier dismissal from Auburn as a freshman.
If you’re keeping score, Longwood only lost one player, unlike Missouri, which early on Sunday morning, Sept. 14, saw its two freshmen forwards — one of them a highly touted recruit — arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault.
Jakeenan Gant (voted the best high school basketball player in Georgia for 2013-14) and D’Angelo Allen, each 18 years old, were suspended from the team indefinitely.
As if two players on the same team being taken into custody wasn’t enough this week, one other player — Texas sophomore guard Martez Walker — managed to singlehandedly outdo Gant and Allen by getting arrested and charged for two separate (but related) offenses within a span of five days.
Already booked with a Class A misdemeanor of assault with injury/dating violence, Walker again landed himself in jail on Monday for criminal trespass in a Texas dorm after ignoring an accompanying ban associated with the first charge.
While we don’t yet know all of the exact details of what took place in each of the above instances involving Johnson, Gant, Allen or Walker, it’s worth noting that circumstances can easily get blown out of proportion, especially with young athletes, particularly when alcohol may be involved at college parties.
But it’s also very likely that in today’s around-the-clock news cycle and social media age, that quartet of suspected troublemakers heard what Rice and Hardy had allegedly done, and aside from Johnson’s case (because of the timing of events), what Peterson was thought to have done as well.
So as athletes themselves, who were afforded the privilege of playing at the highest level of college basketball (in Division I), the logical course of action might have been to learn some valuable lessons and realize that physical abuse, in any manner other than self-defense, has no place in sports or anywhere else in society.
Instead, they’ll now learn the hard way, while their innocent victims suffer from the scars of violence that a variety of factors helped to create.
Peterson, meanwhile, likely would have dealt far differently with his son had his mother not done the same to him when he was a child (after all, Peterson had to learn that form of abusive discipline somewhere).
"“When you whip those you love, it’s not about abuse, but love,” Peterson’s mother, Bonita Jackson told Yahoo Sports in a disturbing, misguided statement. “You want to make them understand that they did wrong.”"
Perhaps seeing her son led away in handcuffs — even though Peterson is a highly accomplished, premier NFL running back — years after the physical abuse she dished out on him might change Jackson’s opinion.
As in Peterson’s case, what has taken place in the NFL and college basketball recently starts with parenting and holding kids accountable for their actions at an early age.
No, not the ways that Peterson or his mother believe that should happen. But just the opposite, with love, proper guidance and encouragement to always to do the right thing, even when anger clouds the minds of some individuals, allowing violent impulses and dangerous inclinations to take hold.
With that more sensible approach in place, a player’s humility and respect for others later replaces the natural sense of entitlement that is often fueled by coaches, schools, teams and sometimes even fans who build athletes up into more than what they should be.
And bear in mind, unlike the aforementioned NFL players, the above-mentioned college basketball players were far from stars, yet still apparently possessed a feeling of being able to get away with whatever they pleased — to the point of physically assaulting others (if what they were charged with is later substantiated).
Thankfully, these types of cases are still fairly rare compared to the majority of top-level college and professional athletes.
Yet even one such act of brutality is too much for all of us — within the sports community and in the community at large — to accept.
From the NFL to college hoops and in all other arenas, it has to stop.
Sports are meant to provide the positives of teamwork accomplishing a shared, unified, worthwhile goal, and a welcome, entertaining distraction for fans from the less comforting things in life. They should never add to misery, needless suffering and setting some of the worst examples possible for a game’s youngest fans — ones like Peterson’s son.
If there’s one good thing we’ve seen in that regard this month is that through vehicles like Twitter, Facebook, smartphones and more, the public is no longer tolerating such behavior.
Although we’re not going to the extent of boycotting games, whether in person or on television, fans and the media now have a louder voice than ever. Thus even when a league as powerful as the NFL fails to take proper action in disciplining acts as terrible as its own players assaulting women and children, public pressure is now moving the needle like never before, enough to sway major sponsors and teams like the Carolina Panthers and Minnesota Vikings to finally take a stand.
That movement is quickly taking effect.
As recently as this morning, the Arizona Cardinals swiftly followed the lead of the Panthers and Vikings by deactivating backup running back Jonathan Dwyer, who scored a key first-quarter touchdown to help Arizona go 2-0 with a road win over the New York Giants on Sunday. Suspending Dwyer hours after they first learned of their running back being charged with aggravated assault on Wednesday, the Cardinals wasted little time in reacting, with the social media world watching.
Missouri, Texas and Longwood did the same in their own instances.
There is some danger in setting that precedent, as livelihoods and opportunities shouldn’t systematically be taken away before all facts are known in each case. But when there is already enough apparent evidence for teams to suspend players while proceedings play out in court rooms, it seems prudent for teams to do so.
Hopefully, the power of that stance, robustly backed by the public, will be so far-reaching and influential that it can begin to prevent the types of awful things we’ve seen of late, before they ever happen. And maybe, all players in every sport will finally learn for the better.