Not often is an athlete checked into a hospital and simultaneously heard echoes of blame for it. Miami Dolphins second year player Jonathan Martin reported to a South Florida hospital to be treated for emotional distress before he returned to his home to be with family.
Martin left the team after several incidents of hazing and bullying. That's right everyone. Journalists, athletes and fans across the country are discussing the league's top story which consists of something many of whom are reading this have been taught not to do since elementary school: Don't bully others, treat them with respect.
The main architect of these incidents was offensive (pun intended) lineman Richie Incognito.
For at least the past few months, and probably much longer, Martin has been mistreated by Incognito in situations including but certainly not limited to; forcing him to pay $15,000 for a team vacation to Las Vegas he chose not to go on and leaving a hateful voicemail consisting of death threats, personal attacks and racial slurs.
When the story broke, Incognito was insensible enough to take to his Twitter account for a tirade about how this story was slanderous. The NFL is in possession of a recording of the voicemail and a transcript has been released to the public, so he should kiss clearing his name goodbye.
He has remained considerably less than incognito since coming into the National Football League in 2005 from Nebraska, where he racked up several suspensions and a misdemeanor assault charge. In 2009 he was voted the dirtiest player in the NFL. In 44 games with the St. Louis Rams, he had 38 penalties, seven of which were unnecessary roughness calls.
While it is vital that this story came out for a few reasons, the fact this actually happened is sickening.
Another column entirely could be spent on the filth that is Richie Incognito, but I want to focus more in a different direction. This situation has illuminated various glaring concerns about the Miami Dolphins, the NFL and sports as a whole community.
On an organizational level, the Miami Dolphins have made egregious errors. It is the responsibility of the head coach to know what is going on in his locker room.
Incognito was a member of the Dolphins' six-person Leadership Council. Putting a player with his less than stellar record was a mistake. Letting something like him slip through the cracks means not only was he a bigoted and ignorant bully, he was a bigoted and ignorant bully with power.
Regardless of whether or not he should have been signed in the first place (some teams took him off their draft boards due to character issues), putting him in a position of leadership and power reflects poor judgment on the part of Miami's coaching staff.
Other players had to have known what was going on. This is also a plain disappointment on part of veteran "leadership" in the Miami Dolphin locker-room.
On a league level, this rings out painful messages to the NFL about its hazing culture.
On ESPN, former head coach Mike Ditka shared his ideas on hazing. "There was some of it and I stopped it. There is no part for this. As long as this person is a part of this football team we treat him like a part of this football team. It was so childish, it was stupidity. What do you want to demean a person for anyway, tradition? I disagree."
Hazing is something you can find in high schools. You can find it in college. You can even find it in prison and in gangs. In what other professional arena can one find hazing? Being in the NFL is a player's profession. Act like it.
There is not an ounce of blame that should go anywhere near Jonathan Martin and those who put the blame on him are as much at fault for feeding this problem as Incognito. Yes, there are some preventative or forceful measures he could have taken to end the bullying early on, but it is beyond unfair to hold him accountable for the actions of a bully.
We do not know the type of person Jonathan Martin is. But if he is quiet and introverted, then it is horrific to hold his personality against him and say he should be the type of person he isn't. It is 2013 and the macho, kick-his-ass attitude for solving problems has no place anywhere.
Going forward, while it is completely understandable if Martin would rather keep things quiet and move on, if he chose to speak out against bullying then he could serve even more as a beacon of hope for countless people around the country who battle this horrific treatment every day.
