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Monday, August 16, 2010

Character Matters

My friend Mike wonders why the NFL is aghast at the behavior of some of its stars but not that of others which in some respects seems just as unseemly. He has in mind specifically the recent behavior of Patriots' QB Tom Brady who, according to a Boston Globe article, got his girlfriend pregnant, broke up with her, and was dating someone else by the time the baby was born.

I suppose this is no big deal to execs who pay women to gyrate mindlessly on the sidelines while wearing next to nothing, but it should be. These people profess to being appalled, as Mike points out, by the abuse to which Michael Vick subjected animals and by the rough treatment to which Ben Roethlisberger subjected young women, but it's also abusive to children to grow up without their biological father present on a daily basis in the home. The fact that such arrangements have become common in American society over the last forty years does nothing to meliorate the harm done to kids by fathers who don't want to take responsibility for their development.

What Brady did violates no law so his is not an offense in the same category as those of Vick or Roethlisberger, of course, but it's very sad that he chose to end his relationship with his actress girlfriend once the two of them had conceived a child. Maybe the NFL poohbahs think that the personal lives of their players, as long as they don't commit any felonies, are none of the league's business, but if they're concerned about the NFL's image then they might encourage a higher level of character and responsibility among their stars.

At the very least, they could stop insulting us by putting women on the sidelines whose only apparent purpose is to promote the sexualization of the sport.

RLC