Posted on 01/20/2014 9:21:37 AM PST by Texas Eagle
‘To Those Who Would Call Me a Thug or Worse …’
I show passion on the football field—but that’s only a small part of who I am. If you want to judge me, I can handle it.
By
Richard Sherman
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What a night, and what a finish.
Near midnight I still had about 70 unread text messages from friends and family, most of which read, “Best interview ever!” Many of my Twitter mentions were less supportive. My body ached. I was thrilled and proud and upset, all at once.
Here’s what happened …
(Excerpt) Read more at mmqb.si.com ...
Sherman is a super intelligent guy, very well spoken. Yes, he lost it yesterday, but is this story really worthy of all the coverage it’s getting? Seahawks uniforms are GREAT!
GO HAWKS!
You are right, Sherman is not a thug. He was raised by hardworking parents who made sure he got an education and got out of Watts/Compton. This is the guy black families should be using as a role model. He lost his temper yesterday, but that one act in not indicative of the person he is.
If smack talk is the only thing that motivates an athlete, he shouldn't be in the NFL. There are other things that should motivate a professional athlete and hopefully some of them motivate Sherman.
I've spent my entire professional life around athletes in a wide variety of sports and at a wide variety of levels, and have met some of the players from the great Vikings teams of the 60s and 70s. They had quiet confidence, which came from their Hall of Fame coach, Bud Grant. It seems to me that a little quiet confidence would help calm things down quite a bit.
That said, an interview in the heat of the moment should have been expected to generate the heat that it did. As the saying goes, don't ask a question if you're afraid to learn the answer.
Hard to say no to freebies I guess, and since the look is unique, fans will buy them for something different.
I guess you didn't hear about Crabtree dissing Sherman all week long.
“They know nothing about football and add nothing to this man’s game.”
Ya got that right!
Okay, so he isn’t a loud-mouthed, ignorant thug - he just plays one in post-game interviews.
“This jaw-jacking goes on all the time between the opposition, especially between DBs vs. Receivers.”
Mike Golic, of ESPN’s “Mike & Mike”, used to say that the amount of jawing/taunting that was done was proportional to how far one lined up from the ball before the snap. The further away, the mouthier the players tended to be with WR’s & DB’s leading the way.
As for interior lineman, Golic said he was to busy, “trying to get air” between snaps to have much to say to the guy lining up over him.
Since, I don’t know... always? Never seen ‘em go below the knees.
In those days, I did too, the thought was for not give your opposition "bulletin board material" which motivated your opponents. No, we did not want that to happen. Lull them into complacency was the thinking. Haha. Instead, the opposition was "heaped with praise" about how good they were, and all the "bad" thoughts were internalized. The thoughts were really about kicking their asses all over the field, which has not changed from yesteryear.
Today, the culture of the NFL has changed to be '"a little bit more" in your face.
I have the utmost respect for a kid from the dregs of society, Compton, California. 70 years ago when my parents first moved to SoCal, it was a place no decent person wanted to live. Richard has taken what has been offered and used it very wisely. My gut tells me that he is an alright guy.
Yes, much less on the line. But Viking lineman John Randle seemed to get his words in though.
THANK YOU!!
Thank you! The guy just single handedly sent his team to the Super Bowl so I’d expect him to be off the charts amped up.
And I hope they squeek by the Broncos, it’ll be tough.
I am sooooooo sick of “OMAHA”………...
“Yes, much less on the line. But Viking lineman John Randle seemed to get his words in though.”
One of the hardnose players of his era. Reputed to be the strongest man in the NFL (then), IIRC.
Actually I know a bit of the backstory here through people I know who were at the event that kicked this feud into overdrive.
So both Crabtree and Sherman attended an annual charity event host by Larry Fitzgerald in Phoenix. A number of local sports celebs were in attendance as well as a number of ASU Sun Devil football players. I know a number of the ASU players and according to every one of them, Crabtree took a swipe at Sherman when Sherman extended his hand to shake Crabtree’s. A scuffle ensued and words were exchanged.
According to people who talked with Sherman he was trying to bury the hatchet as the two men had been engaged in a war of words during the entire 2012-2013 season.
So, yeah I think it explains quite a bit of the backstory.
This guy is known to do stuff like this, do the choke sign for Kaepernick, trash talk Tom Brady, but last night, he really went overboard, first of all, when you pat someone’s ass your just asking for it, the whole “I wanted to shake his hand” was such BS, he was mocking him and he expecting to get his hand shook
Can anyone imagine Johnny Unitas or Roger Staubach speaking like that? Me neither. ‘Nuf said.
I’m in Seattle and during that interview fireworks were going off in the burbs, people were screaming...the city is just pumped! Looked to me like without Sherman that SF would have won. How many times in a player’s life will they make such a HUGE difference when it counts the most. I didn’t blame him...and yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have said it but I give him a pass...
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