-
You do not need to register if you are not going to pay the yearly fee to post. If you register please click here or log in go to "settings" then "my account" then "User Upgrades" and you can renew.
HuskerMax readers can save 50% on Omaha Steaks .
Locked due to no posts in 60 days. Report 1st post if need unlocked Richie Incognito's long road from pariah to relevancy
- Thread starter Trojan Husker
- Start date
- Status
Nebraska needs to keep its distance.
I am not much of a fan of RI. I do think he got jobbed in this situation for much of the reasons you bring up. Still, the Dolphins situation was a microcosm of RI's life IMO. He always seemed to do everything in excess of the norms. If there was a line to narrowly walk but not cross, he would sure as heck always seemed to find a way to cross it and get caught.
I agree the NFL isn't your ordinary workplace and the Press blew this out of proportion. But I do think RI & the Dolphins overstepped even those norms. The thing that is being pushed against is the norms of "hazing" - which I would tend to define as a way of trying to enforce unwritten norms outside of the normal lines of authority in the organization. Sort of peer leadership. You tend to see some of these in areas where a lot of close work and living together over extended periods of time such as team sports, military units, offshore oil rigs, trading floors, etc. While it has its beneficial aspects, there can also a lot of flat out harassment based on everything from race to level of education (I remember one supervisor telling an engineer that the best he could hope for is that the guys on the rig wouldn't hold his college degree against him
). And society is rightfully less tolerant of the latter discriminatory issues.
Last edited:
Without question RI walked away from this a little smarter and a little more mature. He probably learned from this ... and that is good.I am not much of a fan of RI. I do think he got jobbed in this situation for much of the reasons you bring up. Still, the Dolphins situation was a microcosm of RI's life IMO. He always seemed to do everything in excess of the norms. If there was a line to narrowly walk but not cross, he would sure as heck always seemed to find a way to cross it and get caught.
I agree the NFL isn't your ordinary workplace and the Press blew this out of proportion. But I do think RI & the Dolphins overstepped even those norms. The thing that is being pushed against is the norms of "hazing" - which I would tend to define as a way of trying to enforce unwritten norms outside of the normal lines of authority in the organization. Sort of peer leadership. You tend to see some of these in areas where a lot of close work and living together over extended periods of time such as team sports, military units, offshore oil rigs, trading floors, etc. While it has its beneficial aspects, there can also a lot of flat out harassment based on everything from race to level of education (I remember one supervisor telling an engineer that the best he could hope for is that the guys on the rig wouldn't hold his college degree against him
To me the most telling point out of all of this is that RI is still employed in the NFL and Jonathan Martin is not ... obviously their talent level and ability to contribute matter but RI is still playing in part because he fits within an NFL locker room.
I agree with that. I don't know anyone that condones this type of behavior but hopefully he has learned.
On/off topic for those in the Military. In our platoon in boot camp we had some fellers that decided one night to get a pillow case and some soap and go beat a guy for being slack and basically a putz. I slept through the incident but was questioned later about it (I was the platoon guide). The recruit that got beat eventually was dropped the ones that did the beating kept going. Not sure that could happen now in today's military.
I understand where you are coming from. Yet, we are "stuck" with him in the sense that we often get mentioned in the "Bad Richie" articles so we might as well be happy when there are "Good Richie" stories.
Also, I don't think you (and most others) don't want to see him do poorly. Hey, I don't want him, Martin or anyone else do poorly either. So it is good to see RI finding a spot and perhaps, hopefully, actually learning something.
The second paragraph prompted me to follow up on Jonathan Martin.
Found these. I somewhat feel for Martin in the sense that these are evidence that he didn't really know who he was and that at the end of the day he really didn't want to play football all that badly. Not that there is anything wrong with that but it sheds light on Dolphins perhaps not really doing a good job either understanding who they were drafting or working with him once they had him. Having other players trying to "take him under their wings and toughen him up" in their perverse way was a bad move. And RI being that guy in his ham handed always over the wrong side of the line way.
Kind of a book end for the RI article:
In many senses Martin hadn't found himself. I can think of other NFL'ers who are bright, intelligent, sensitive (maybe) are great football players and have found ways to express themselves and maybe really not be of the NFL. Who knows, perhaps Martin may yet do so.
Last edited:
Talk about blaming the victim. The guy was called the N word multiple times. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT BEHAVIOR NONE. I spent a lot of years in the Marine Corps. You will not find a bigger petry dish of macismo in the world than a squadbay in the Marine Corps. There are however lines that never got crossed. The N word was a big one. It did not matter how good of a Marine you were. That did not fly. RI is an arrogant a** who thinks the rules do not apply to him. I will never root for him.
I was not blaming the victim (JM). I have never felt that RI acted appropriately. I do think JM was a victim of an extreme aspect of NFL and Football culture. JM in his own words mentions, in a lot of respects, how he felt he never fit into the many environments he was placed from late grade school on. He did feel he fit well in Stanford Football. The NFL isn't Stanford Football. A team that better understood JM would have handled him better. Every report I ever read indicated that RI and other players were put up to it to a certain extent. And to put it another way RI doesn't understand the word nuance and the N-Word was bandied about a great deal by both AA & White players. I don't find using words like that appropriate even in that case, but a lot of people do not "get" that.
it is all about context. There is not one situation you or I have ever been in that would allow for the N word to be used. Yet rap stars use it unite frequently. Comedians have used it in context of their act.
No no one has ever asserted that RI is racist. I doubt he'd still be active in the NFL if he were or was even perceived to be. Should that word be allowed in the locker room. I suspect people with better judgement would have said something differently.
Nevertheless Martin lacked the courage, personal fortitude and common sense to deal with the issue directly, internally. He had to make it public. He darn near destroyed someone's life because he perceived he was being bullied. In the context of an NFL locker room.
Youre passing judgement as am I by employing our experiences and beliefs in a situation we do not quite understand. No one is saying what RI did is right but I am saying what Jonathan Martin did wasn't right either.
We did it too to some ******** bag who didn't know what a shower was. It still happens but I don't think nearly as much.
Last edited:
- Status
