DAY 2. Still no sign of trouble. You hang out, read TV Guide, and take a nice steam bath. Everything seems to be okay! Cherish this day, because you’re about to get totally reamed.
DAY 3. Your remark crime illegal canine mixed martial arts federation is noted deep inside a small local paper with a relatively limited circulation, like the Newark Star-Ledger. You worry for a moment about your transgression going public. But hey, it’s a small paper. Maybe, just maybe, this whole thing will blow over. After all, few people will notice this item. The problem is that the ones who do will say to themselves, “Holy shit! He [raped a puppy insulted the ambassador to Cambodia beat a tranny]? What an idiot!” And they will all be journalists.
DAY 4. Your little story is listed in the headlines section of ESPN.com. Uh-oh.
DAY 5. That little ESPN.com story is now a headline on all major AP sports newswires and sports Web sites. The blogs have now picked it up and immediately make the first round of obvious jokes about your incident. Things like, “Well, he does play for the Bengals.” I suggest booking a ticket to Curacao immediately.
DAY 6. Don Yaeger talks to your mother on the phone for an hour before she realizes that he is (a) a reporter, (b) interviewing her for an extended piece about your mistake, and (c) not you.
DAY 7. Yaeger’s scathing blow-by-blow account of your fuck-up is posted on SI.com. It’s one of those five-thousand-word pieces that no one reads. But the AP will do a news story about that news story, gathering together all the most damning quotes from the piece (“That boy was crazy with that shovel!”) in one concise, easy-to-read item. And that will be enough to drive your story into Stage 2 of media overkill. This is when the media takes your story and uses it as a platform to discuss larger social issues. Were you caught with a gun? Then the media will discuss gun control. Arrested on a domestic violence charge? Then the media will discuss society’s endless coddling of athletes. And, no matter what you did, you can expect people to pull the race card and to be outraged that the story has been blown out of proportion (if you’re black) or not blown out of proportion enough (if you’re white). Either way, you are now fucking miserable.
DAY 8. The media camps outside your home, your team’s practice facility, your parents’ house, the courthouse, and your urologist’s office. Remember: if you give them a quote, you’re only adding extra life to the story. So run! Run for your car as fast as you can! You should be able to easily outrun any member of the media.
DAY 9. Your arraignment. You plead no contest. Always plead no contest. It’s what every athlete does. What does no contest mean? No clue.
DAY 10. You issue a press release that serves as both a half-assed apology and a denial. Be sure to mention God in there somewhere. Christians are real suckers for forgiveness when they think you’re one of them. You shut yourself in your home, turning off all the lights and duct-taping the blinds shut, vowing never to come out again.
DAY 11. Another player just choked a stripper! The media retreats and goes off to pick a fresh rotting carcass.
HEAR IT FROM AN ATHLETE!
Obstructing justice in a murder case is especially hard on the person who obstructed justice in a murder case
by Ray Lewis
You come into this league, you’re gonna be dealing with some haters. Oh, you can’t see them now. They ain’t found you yet, like they found me. But they’re out there. These haters . . . these hateraters . . . these agents of hateration . . . these hatemongeraters . . . they’re lying in wait for you. I know. Because they came after me. And you know why? All because I was at the scene when two men were stabbed to death, then fled in a limo rather than call for help, then obstructed justice, then turned rat on my two friends who were there with me.
All because of that.
These haters don’t understand my pain. They don’t believe in God, like I do. They don’t believe in salvation, like I do. These haters in the media, and on the Internet, and in the stands, and in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and in the way-back of my conscience, they’re not interested in learning the deeper truth.