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| Rashard Mendenhall Huffington Post |
As you may have gathered, I love the people here. They have a unique way about them. It's a mix of extreme bluntness and kind heartedness. You'd think the two don't go together, but, oddly, they do. At first it was off-putting: having someone tell you exactly what they thought in such a forthright manner. I thought of myself as a straight shooter for the most part, but I didn't lay it out there anywhere close to how Pittsburghers seem to. But, at the same time, they generally seemed to mean it well. That was confusing at first. Finally, I just kind of got it: this is a town built on the backs of hard workers who didn't have time for word games and intrigue, so they say what they mean and mean what they say. But at the same time, they seem genuinely kind. They just want you to know if you're doing something dumb, because that's really what's best for you. And, trust me, at first I was doing lots of dumb stuff. Of course, that's a gross generalization of a diverse population, but I've seen it over and over. And it wasn't too long before I began to respect how people are here. You know where you stand. But, add sports and a computer or smartphone to the mix and it's a different story.
I've been thinking about how social media has changed all our lives a lot recently, ever since former Steeler running back Rashard Mendenhall retired at the ripe old age of 26. My initial thought when the alert came across my phone was, "Well, there's a career brought down by Twitter." I'm sure his ill-fated Tweet about the death of Osama bin Laden wasn't the only reason he threw in the towel, but I think it was the beginning of the end. I remember it:
What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side...
— Rashard Mendenhall (@R_Mendenhall) May 2, 2011
I was actually on Twitter when it came across, and I immediately thought he'd end up regretting sending it. I also thought I knew what he was trying to say, but he was choosing the wrong format in which to try and say it. He had Gandhi as his Twitter avatar at one point for crying out loud. He is a thoughtful, intelligent young man, so I thought that he was just bothered by the collective blood lust we were all showing. But you can't adequately express a complicated sentiment like that in 140 characters. Granted, he would later go on and write some things that I am dubious about, including some conspiracy theory stuff about 9/11 that doesn't sit well with a city so close to where Flight 93 went down, but just because he's intelligent doesn't protect him from his own youth and maybe being overly impressionable and naive. But, it was that Tweet in particular that created such a stir, even invoking a reaction from Dan Rooney that was clearly meant to distance the team from his player's unwise words. Maybe had the Steelers and Mendenhall had a great next season, Steelers fans would have forgotten about it over time. They've forgiven much in their elite athletes. But, the simple fact is, they didn't, and so it just added to a festering wound and things got bad for him here. I'm sorry for that, but I've often thought about that fateful quote and pondered that no one has ever been made by Twitter, but they sure have been brought down by it.
So Mr. Mendenhall, at the tender age of 23 learned the hard lesson that free speech isn't really free. Unfortunately, some of the same people that were so quick to condemn him aren't in the limelight and don't have the same stakes, so they are a little more at liberty to say hateful, mean spirited things out on the Internet with impunity. Generally about our sports teams. The Pirates organization better buckle up. They've gotten a pass for the last two decades by being perennial losers. Now that they've broken that streak, the expectations are higher and the critiques will be too. Face it, Pittsburgh Nation, we're spoiled. We're so used to winning that any time we don't, we go a little nuts. But it gets out of hand and becomes ugly, personal and, frankly, wrong.
Take last weekend for example. It was a rough one for the Penguins. And I get that we all hated that. Not only did they lose back-to-back games, and look pretty rough doing it, but they lost to the hated Flyers. I mean we HATE that team. And they always seem to have our number. But the Twitter-sphere made it seem like we were on the Titanic without a life boat. The cries to fire the coach and the goalie were flying! I know, I know: all sports fan get that way. I used to sit in the student section at UT games and marvel at all the little frat boys trying to out coach Mack Brown because they used to play high school ball. "Really?" I would always think to myself, "If you're so spectacular of a football mind, then why are you sitting up here with me?" I know we pay the money and support the advertisers that make big sports go round. We've got a right to demand a good product. But we've got one. And that's what kills me.
You can't have it both ways. You can't call where we live the City of Champions to the rest of the world, but then tell the goalie with the highest number of wins in the NHL that he sucks and that we should get rid of him. (Which he doesn't, by the way - if your defense let's enough shots through, he can't stop them all. Ask Marty Brodeur about that, and he'll probably tell you, if it was just about the goalie stopping the puck the Devils would win the Stanley Cup every year, but it's a team sport. And sometimes the team has a rough night.)
The chatter got so bad that my husband, all the way down there in Texas, emailed to ask me why the Pens were doing so badly the following Monday, confessing he hadn't seen any hockey, he was just hearing things. I shut that opinion down in no uncertain terms and haven't really spoken to him since.
I think it's a combination of the ease of spewing whatever comes to your mind when it comes on Twitter and Facebook, fueled by adrenaline and alcohol that has caused people like Rashard Mendenhall to hate what they are doing so much they literally walk away from it in the prime of their life. He said it was because he didn't want to put his body at risk anymore, but then he also wrote, "Imagine having a job where you're always on duty, and can never fully relax or you just may drown. Having to fight through waves and currents of praise and criticism, but most hate. I can't even count how many times I've been called a 'dumb n-----.'"
That's just sad. And it's beneath us. We all want to win. But we're better than this. So, think before you Tweet. It's such a powerful tool with the ability to cut. Use it wisely.
So Mr. Mendenhall, at the tender age of 23 learned the hard lesson that free speech isn't really free. Unfortunately, some of the same people that were so quick to condemn him aren't in the limelight and don't have the same stakes, so they are a little more at liberty to say hateful, mean spirited things out on the Internet with impunity. Generally about our sports teams. The Pirates organization better buckle up. They've gotten a pass for the last two decades by being perennial losers. Now that they've broken that streak, the expectations are higher and the critiques will be too. Face it, Pittsburgh Nation, we're spoiled. We're so used to winning that any time we don't, we go a little nuts. But it gets out of hand and becomes ugly, personal and, frankly, wrong.
Take last weekend for example. It was a rough one for the Penguins. And I get that we all hated that. Not only did they lose back-to-back games, and look pretty rough doing it, but they lost to the hated Flyers. I mean we HATE that team. And they always seem to have our number. But the Twitter-sphere made it seem like we were on the Titanic without a life boat. The cries to fire the coach and the goalie were flying! I know, I know: all sports fan get that way. I used to sit in the student section at UT games and marvel at all the little frat boys trying to out coach Mack Brown because they used to play high school ball. "Really?" I would always think to myself, "If you're so spectacular of a football mind, then why are you sitting up here with me?" I know we pay the money and support the advertisers that make big sports go round. We've got a right to demand a good product. But we've got one. And that's what kills me.
You can't have it both ways. You can't call where we live the City of Champions to the rest of the world, but then tell the goalie with the highest number of wins in the NHL that he sucks and that we should get rid of him. (Which he doesn't, by the way - if your defense let's enough shots through, he can't stop them all. Ask Marty Brodeur about that, and he'll probably tell you, if it was just about the goalie stopping the puck the Devils would win the Stanley Cup every year, but it's a team sport. And sometimes the team has a rough night.)
The chatter got so bad that my husband, all the way down there in Texas, emailed to ask me why the Pens were doing so badly the following Monday, confessing he hadn't seen any hockey, he was just hearing things. I shut that opinion down in no uncertain terms and haven't really spoken to him since.
I think it's a combination of the ease of spewing whatever comes to your mind when it comes on Twitter and Facebook, fueled by adrenaline and alcohol that has caused people like Rashard Mendenhall to hate what they are doing so much they literally walk away from it in the prime of their life. He said it was because he didn't want to put his body at risk anymore, but then he also wrote, "Imagine having a job where you're always on duty, and can never fully relax or you just may drown. Having to fight through waves and currents of praise and criticism, but most hate. I can't even count how many times I've been called a 'dumb n-----.'"
That's just sad. And it's beneath us. We all want to win. But we're better than this. So, think before you Tweet. It's such a powerful tool with the ability to cut. Use it wisely.
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