The Monster of the Great Northwest

“I am not a role model.  I’m not paid to be a role model.  I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models.  Just because I dunk a basketball, doesn’t mean I should raise your kids”  ~  Charles Barkley

A monster is prowling the great Pacific Northwest.  A creature that has terrified the populace; making women faint, grown men cry and forcing parents to lock their children indoors.  Have they found Sasquatch?  Is it a crazed serial killing mountain man lurking in the dark forests preying on unsuspecting campers?  Is it a rogue grizzly bear or a rabid wolf tearing apart hikers?  No it’s none of those.  It’s much worse.  It’s a football player; Seattle Seahawks’ cornerback Richard Sherman. 

Richard Sherman has become a villain so heinous as to almost defy description.  And I stress almost, because following a 20 second rant with Fox sideline reporter Erin Andrews immediately after last Sunday’s playoff game with the San Francisco 49ers Sherman has been widely described.  He’s been described as a punk, a thug, an idiot, a jerk, a d-bag, and of course, being a black man, every single racial slur in the Ku Klux Klan dictionary of slurs and probably some that hadn't yet been made up.  It’s become a story that’s managed to overshadow everything in the news.  You know, small things like a Western states’ drought of Biblical proportions; progress on a nuclear deal with Iran; the bottlenose dolphin slaughter in Japan and concerns about terrorism at the Olympics.  The only thing that managed to kick l’affaire Sherman to the curb (albeit briefly) was Justin Bieber's arrest in Miami for drag racing (which pinpoints the deep, dark place where the collective heads of Americans are at).   

For those who've been vacationing on Mars or stupidly focusing on the Iran deal here’s what happened.  At the end of the NFC Championship game, Sherman tipped a potential game winning pass meant for 49ers’ receiver Michael Crabtree into the grateful hands of teammate Malcolm Smith essentially sealing the deal and sending the 49ers and their season home in ruins.  Immediately after the game Andrews found an amped up Sherman and asked him to describe the end zone play and that’s when the rant hit the fan.  Sherman screaming at the camera claimed that he was the best corner in the game while demoting Crabtree to mediocre status.  The boys in the production truck apparently seeing an FCC fine bubbling in Sherman's churning cauldron decided to cut the interview short.  And the rest was left to social media frenzy. 

Here in San Francisco, home of the losing team, the vitriol hasn't stopped.  After all, one of the local heroes was insulted; his reputation sullied; his character besmirched and his ability demeaned.  For those still wearing their red and gold glasses this is an affair of honor that can’t be let go.  In the olden days (like, over 200 years ago) there was a mechanism for handling these imbroglios; pistols at 10 paces.  I suppose that we could offer Sherman and Crabtree a set of cap and ball pistols to have at it but my feeling is that they've moved on.  Which is probably something everyone else should do. 

In a subsequent CNN interview a quiet and articulate Sherman acknowledged that it was “immature” and that he “probably shouldn't have done that.” “I regret doing that,” he said.  But that’s not good enough, especially here in 49er – land.  And it's certainly not good enough for the bigoted folks who feel violated when a black man speaks too loudly. 

The fact is, Richard Sherman is not the monster that he’s been made out to be.  Do I defend his tirade?  Absolutely not.  It was rude, it was bad sportsmanship and it was unprofessional.  Having said that, it was an in the moment gut reaction immediately after the game ended.  Sherman was obviously still running on high octane adrenaline.  Is that an excuse?  In a radio interview this past week former 49er great Jerry Rice was asked about the Sherman interview.  Said Rice, “After a ball game I needed that cooling down process…take a little time and then once I had that little cooling down process the media would come in; then you are thinking properly..we’re emotionally caught up in the game.”  I know that I've come out of my office at times in a lather about some drama du jour.  How much more so for someone in a profession in which I recall one player describe as a place where “we would do things on the field that we would be arrested for in real life?”

Over the past year there have been a number of articles describing Sherman’s life.  He grew up in the Southern California community of Compton; a place which gained a notorious reputation for a high crime rate, drugs and gang violence.  Sherman managed to keep his head above it all.  In high school he took leadership and Advanced Placement courses and while some of his classmates were overdosing on a drug of some sort, Sherman OD’d on extra credit.  He graduated second in his class with a 4.2 GPA.  On not being valedictorian Sherman said, “That still hurts.”   How many professional athletes bemoan missing a 4.3 (the first in his class) by a tenth of a point?  Sherman went on to Stanford where he got his degree and then stayed for his final year of eligibility so that he could begin his Master’s Degree.  Well I guess that addresses the idiot tag. 

I went on social media and posted one of those articles and was taken to task for my trouble.  “He’s no role model” I was admonished.  Well I respectfully disagree.  Hell, I even disrespectfully disagree.  Richard Sherman is an outstanding role model.  Not for what he does on the field.  I long ago gave up on people as role models, just because they can hit a baseball, run a sub-four minute mile or put a ball through a hoop.  Professional athletes are not sporting gentlemen on the field of play.  I've seen some of the most respected baseball players feign getting hit by a pitch so that they can get a free base.  And as for football players?  They’ll get in a cheap shot when they can and many take trash talking to a refined art, including Sherman.  For many players, particularly defensive backs, constant chirping is a part of the game.  I've never liked the demonstrations, the dances, the chest thumping and the histrionics but it's become as much a part of the game as the ball itself.  You accept it or watch something else. And as for that championship game between the Seahawks and the 49ers, it was a vast landfill of trash.  Said Buster Olney of ESPN on Twitter, “Sherman accused of lacking sportsmanship: Anybody who watched the game, w/talking on both sides, knows sportsmanship went out before kickoff.”

Richard Sherman is a role model because of his off the field story.  A role model spends his teen summers building block towers with children suffering from cerebral palsy.  A role model tells his flunking classmates, "Man, I'm going to love coming back from college and watching you guys at the J.C.," and then when they do get into college because of the cajoling. he helps them get through their college years.  Said Sherman’s high school football coach in an article for SI, "He was helping those guys all the way through (college)… calling them, texting them—reminding them what they needed to do."   A role model helps out at the Special Olympics and at charity camps for kids with Down Syndrome.  A role model spends his offseason preaching to inner city kids about the importance of education and raises money for school supplies and says things like, "We shouldn't ever leave a kid behind. But it's hard for them to take the SATs when the textbooks they're using were made in 2000. How can they compete?”  A role model is articulate and carries himself with an air of intelligence as Sherman does OFF the field. 

As Stephen A. Smith said on ESPN’s first take said, “there’s a lot more positive than negative about this guy.”  True that.  He’s a contributor for SI’s Monday Morning QB and his columns are thoughtful and well written.  Definitely not jock speak.  During last year’s Super Bowl week he did a piece for Bleacher Report in which he interviewed fans on Bourbon Street asking who was the best cover corner, Richard Sherman or (Tampa’s) Darrelle Revis.  At the end of each interview, and many chose Revis while criticizing Sherman, he introduced himself with some amusing self-deprecation, “Hi I’m Richard Sherman,” to the shock of the surprised fans.   

And so, for a 20 second sound bite, Richard Sherman is defined and none of the rest, which is the most important, the meat and the potatoes, matters.  He didn't kill anybody like former Patriots’ tight end Aaron Hernandez is alleged to have done; he hasn't skipped out on a flock of children that he’s sired like Terrell Owens; he hasn't been arrested for domestic violence like Chad Johnson and Dez Bryant and scores of other athletes.  He didn't get arrested on a DUI or a weapons charge, activities that actually endanger lives like one of the local heroes here in SF did.  My feeling,and he seems to hint at it in the CNN interview, is that Sherman’s regret is that this mistake in judgment now represents who he is. 

It’s definitely the case here in 49er-ville.  Richard Sherman is evil incarnate and the energy expended in hate could light up the Golden Gate Bridge.  That’s unfortunate because as Stephen Smith said the pros out weight the cons.  But fans are fans and in the world of red and gold there is no area of gray.  The fans don’t understand that football is, for these men, a violent, dangerous, emotion filled business; a livelihood that’s fueled on adrenaline and a need to gain every possible edge.  That’s why wide receivers and defensive backs spend sixty minutes jawing at each other.   But for the fans and viewers it’s (or should be) just a game; a G A M E  \ˈgām\: a physical or mental activity or contest that has rules and that people do for pleasure.  

Some years back I was given the opportunity to coach high school cross country.  It would have required me to leave the office at 2:45.  With some trepidation I asked Mike, my boss, if that could be worked out.  Without a second thought he said of course, and he added, “because that’s who you are.  This office isn’t who you are.”  Richard Sherman is the decent man who does the good that he does out of the office; the things that we should all strive to do outside of our own offices.  And for that he is a role model. 

"I'm an awkward guy. People used to tell me all the time, you’re not from here. And that's the way I felt, like somebody took me from somewhere else and dropped me down into this place. I was strange because I went to class, did the work, read the books and was still pretty good at sports. If you're like me, people think you're weird. They pull you in different directions. But those people aren't going where you're going. I know the jock stereotype—cool guy, walking around with your friends, not caring about school, not caring about anything. I hate that stereotype. I want to destroy it. I want to kill it.”  ~  Richard Sherman on his high school days in Compton.