ED Reed apologized for it after the game. There was no need to apologize, not given the fractured rationalizations invoked by those who refuse to identify bad as bad and good as good.
Nonetheless, Reed apologized. “I have to be smarter,” he confessed.
Reed, the Ravens’ rookie free safety, intercepted a first-quarter pass against the Bengals last Sunday, then broke into the clear.
He was about to score a touchdown when, at the 8-yard line, he stuck the ball out in SportsCenter-don’t-fail-me-now self-adulation. Ballplayers now commonly refer to the milking of such moments as “pimping.”
Charming.
Anyway, much to Reed’s surprise, as he pimped his way toward the end zone, he was caught from behind. The ball was easily knocked loose, then recovered by the Bengals in the end zone for a touchback. First and 10, the other way.
Once, such calamitously immodest behavior would’ve created a national sensation. The video would’ve made all the nightly and daily sportscasts, local and national. But Reed was in large part spared the ignominy of his misdeed, likely because we should no longer be shocked by such a happenstance. Counter-productive self-indulgence is just part of the game.
The part that’s tough to figure is why Reed bothered to apologize when he had an iron-clad defense and lots of important folks willing to defend him, even praise him.
But his act was indefensible; who could possibly excuse, let alone praise, such behavior?
Think back to this past summer, when the nationally televised Harlem Little Leaguers, en route to the semis of the LL World Series, drew criticism for their acts of excessive on-field immodesty. Theirs was a team loaded with 11- and 12-year-old showoffs. Clearly, they’d watched a lot of sports on TV.
That criticism, however, was met with counter-criticism, on TV (ESPN’s Harold Reynolds), in newspapers (The New York Times) and even from the kids’ neighborhood politicians (State Senator David Paterson, who represents Harlem).
Those who would criticize the behavior of these kids, these defenders claimed, are, at worst, racist, but minimally insensitive to these kids’ “cultural” expressionism.
And the fed up LL administrators who were finally moved to admonish the Harlem players – unsportsmanlike conduct is against LL rules – surely were also guilty of cultural insensitivity.
So then why, based on the same principles, wouldn’t the same people – people in high, very responsible and very visible places – step forward to explain, excuse and even praise Ed Reed for his cultural demonstration?
Why wouldn’t they? Because it’s a ludicrous position, that’s why.
Just about anything can be explained as cultural, from car-jackings to corned beef and cabbage. But because something can be identified as cultural doesn’t make it good, worth sustaining or even worthy of indulgence.
And there are endless cultures to choose from: Racial culture, ethnic culture, religious culture, TV culture, pop culture, sports culture.
But to indulge or even praise antisocial behavior as “cultural” is less a defense than it is a condemnation. It essentially says, “You can’t expect any better from them/us.”
In Reed’s case, as have so many NFL check-me-out artists and trash-talkers over the past 15-plus years, he studied football at the University of Miami. Maybe his on-field behavior last Sunday was educationally cultural. I don’t think Jeremy Shockey has been flagged for taunting for the last time, do you?
Perhaps next time the ref should switch on his stadium microphone and say, “Disregard the flag. The man called for the personal foul played for the University of Miami. We’re going to pick up the flag, no foul, because of cultural reasons. Second down.”
The next time the culture card is played to defend an athlete’s misbehavior, try to remember Ed Reed’s indefensibly immodest behavior. How could it possibly be excused as cultural?
Then try to remember how, a few months earlier, when Little Leaguers behaved in an excessively immodest fashion – the way Reed did – very public adults very publicly defended their antics as “cultural.”
Oh, the fellow on the Bengals who knocked the ball free from Reed was WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh. What do we do with him? Do we praise his determination? Or do we trash him for insensitivity toward another man’s culture?
