If NFL owners and players wanted to dismiss the racially charged hazing of Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Jonathan Martin as Fun With Rookies, they better be prepared for the media nerds who want to destroy the popularity of football so it sinks to the cultural level of boxing.
On Wednesday’s Morning Edition, NPR set loose its sports commentator Frank Deford to tell parents not to let their boys (or girls) play football, because it can “damage your soul as well as your brain”:
The 2010 NFL draft showed that it's not enough to be a star football player anymore. Character counts now too. Tim Tebow, and the Denver Bronco's drafting him as first-round pick, was the big story out of the NFL draft. Despite a phenomenal college career in which he won the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore, led the Florida Gators to two national championships, and lived out his Christian beliefs, many expressed doubts over Tebow's ability to compete on the professional level.
For publicly stating his Christian beliefs, Tebow has been called a "religious fundamentalist, lightning-rod misfit," told he "has a long way to mature from a business perspective," and his family and friends were compared to "Nazis."