In light of what Richie Incognito did to Jonathan Martin, it’s troubling we have former football players, current football players, couple of sports radio talkies and fans defending football players for hazing.
Antrel Rolle ripped Martin for handling his situation while Mike Wallace, Cris Carter and Keyshawn Johnson have commended Incognito. These people say it’s a rite of passage. They also said we should not compare locker room environment to work environment.
Talk about ignorance. Sorry, but hazing has no place in professional sports. It never should have happened in the first place.
Rookies shouldn’t be subjected to poor treatment by veterans just because they didn’t pay their dues. Those guys are important part of the team. There’s a reason they were drafted, and that’s to be an important contributor to the team.
Plus, a player shouldn’t be committing a player-on-player crime to his own teammate. Players need to bond together for a common purpose, and that is to win a championship. There has to be a good working environment for this to take place. It’s hard for a team to win if there are incidents like the one Incognito created in harassing Martin to the point he forced his teammate to walk out on the Dolphins.
One can only wonder what Incognito was thinking. What would possess someone to harass someone in that type of manner? He went over the line by harassing Martin on Twitter and voicemail. For the veteran to spew racial epithets on the second year player’s voicemail, this is hate crime at its finest.
For someone to suggest Incognito was clowning around with Martin by testing him, stop. This seems like a player who had no use for his teammate not being man enough to be an offensive lineman. This bugged him to the point he went off the deep end.
Everyone wants Martin to stand up for himself. Easy for them to say when they are not in his position. He probably is not wired to do so, and if he punches the veteran, he would be shunned by his teammates or be charged with assault. That’s something those experts conveniently forget.
Incognito is paying the price by being suspended by the Dolphins indefinitely, and odds are he played his last game as a Dolphin. It’s going to be hard for him to get a job in the NFL because no NFL team wants to deal with the negative fallout of signing him. Plus, he is not really that good when one realizes he has been bounced from teams to teams.
Sadly, what happened with the Dolphins is no different than what happens with other NFL teams when they haze. Only this one was reported.
There was an incident last year that featured Jason Pierre-Paul throwing Prince Amukamara into a cold tub in an attempt at hazing.
Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon mentioned group of Raiders defensive linemen punching a Raiders tight end in his first year as a Raider, and he put a stop to it once he saw it.
Bart Scott talked about a rookie being tied to the goalpost while his teammates poured Gatorade on him.
Jeremy Shockey was involved with brawls with his own teammates in his rookie season after he was being harassed by the veterans.
There are stories about rookies paying an enormous amount of tab in buying dinner for their teammates.
It’s disgusting. That’s why then-Vikings coach Brad Childress should be commended for banning hazing by his team. He did not think it would benefit rookies well in a work environment. That was actually one reason the veterans hated him when he was the coach. Coaches such as Tony Dungy and Don Shula prohibited hazing, too.
There’s talk about rite of passage in professional sports where every player has to go through hazing in being accepted. Says who? For a player to be accepted, he should be respectful and be an impact player.
It’s one thing for rookies to bring donuts, getting lunch or carry helmets. That’s okay since they are doing a good deed. It’s not even hazing. It’s another thing to harass and bully someone. This has happened too long.
I was bullied as a kid in elementary school, junior high school and high school. It wasn’t a fun experience, and I still think about these memories to this day. Bullying and hazing carry a long-lasting effect that can cause someone to commit suicide.
Stop talking about how the NFL workplace is different and how no one should comment if they never played in the NFL. There’s no defense in bullying someone on his own team just to test his mettle. We are living in the 21st century. It’s time to get with the times here.
This should not only be in the NFL. Hazing should not happen in the NHL, MLB and NBA.
There’s this laughable idea about hazing bringing team unity. It does not. The rookies hate it. It’s hard enough as it is to make an impact on the team, so there’s no reason to make it worse by harassing someone.
Veterans’ job is to mentor rookies by helping them navigate through muddy waters in their first season. They are supposed to be leaders to them. By having rookies go through hazing, this is not leadership.
After what Incognito did to Martin, there has to be a referendum to end hazing for good in any professional league.
Leslie Monteiro
Leslie is a contributor for Lightning Rod Sports. He covered high school sports in Bergen County out in North Jersey, and has written op-ed columns on sports such as Bleacher Report and NY Sports Digest.
