Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Jameis Winston, Finally Punished

Jameis Winston is a good quarterback. Jameis Winston never gets punished for the bad things he does. These things are not unrelated.
Jameis Winston sexually assaulted a girl, stole soda from Burger King (drinking out of ketchup cup), stole food from a grocery store, and fired BB guns on campus breaking windows of the complex where he lived.
Winston avoided any real punishment for any of these incidents.
But now he has gotten his comeuppance. For what?
Let me first start with a video (NSFW language, ok with headphones):



That is a fake video, purportedly of a reporter working a missing person story saying when they find the woman that he will "fuck her right in the pussy."
Harmful, mildly funny, if juvenile, internet video.
As those things tend to do, it went somewhat viral and became a meme.
A meme Jameis Winston must have found funny.
He stood on a table in the middle of the Florida State student union and shouted "fuck her right in the pussy."
Florida State has reached its breaking point. They could take no more of Winston's behavior. He had to be punished and punished severely and swiftly. Florida has suspended him for one half, that's 30 minutes of football time, of Saturday's game against Clemson.



Now I suppose it's possible that FSU could get down big to Clemson early and lose the game, costing them a national title and him a second Heisman.
But more likely FSU will make the new playoff, even with a loss, and if he plays well enough in the other games he has a good chance to become only the second player to win 2 Heismans.
And he will do it while knowing that nothing he does wrong ever has serious repercussions.

Haven't we recently seen the downside of this entitle attitude from athletes manifest itself in the despicable actions of Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and to a lesser degree Dwight Howard (27 traffic violations).

For his part, Winston seemed contrite in his apology, and didn't try to lie his way out of it. Maybe he is growing up.

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