The recent misadventures of Brandon Marshall and Carmelo Anthony, which include brushes with the law, again have shone the spotlight on local athletes’ private-life behavior.
Teams wrestle daily with the issue of how much emphasis to place on character when assembling rosters and making decisions on whom to keep or cut.
Complete idealism is impractical, and we’re seeing more and more that the issues of public relations, salary caps, competitiveness and team chemistry all come into play. The unwritten law, as in virtually any business, is that the more valuable you are, the more leeway you get. (Travis Henry could have had 50 children by 50 women in 50 states and still would be with the Broncos if he had stayed healthy and participated in the offseason workouts.) The trick for teams is to find that delicate balance, because when you win, nobody cares about anything else.
Can’t we all agree on that?
The other matter on the front burner, more than ever, is how forgiving we should be while considering the non-workplace conduct of athletes.
I’ve always found it interesting how those who tend to be most disdainful of a few athletes’ conduct — and no matter what anyone tries to tell you, misbehaving athletes still are the exception, rather than the norm — don’t raise their voices with similar zeal about the actions of non-sports figures in the entertainment industry.
Robert Downey Jr., Jack Nicholson, David Crosby, Charlie Sheen or (fill in the blank with any of the many, many other names) have suffered few or no career-affecting consequences for conduct that would cause athletes to be denounced as scumbags and as pressure mounts in this era, to be subject to suspension — or worse — by league czars.
Beyond that, as we’ve delved into the allegations of Marshall’s abuse of girlfriend Rasheedah Watley, for example, I believe we were dragged off track when searching out other examples of domestic- abuse allegations involving athletes.
As a loyal, yet dissenting, voice in an office and profession that take pride in being marketplaces of diverse ideas, I consider it troubling that The Denver Post and other media outlets often don’t sufficiently make distinctions among various allegations of domestic abuse.
The standards of reporting and sometimes mandatory filing of initial charges are strict. I understand why, and I support the premise.
But that doesn’t justify running a Patrick Roy police mug shot or a Daniel Graham courtroom hallway picture, as we did Sunday, and at least implying that their “incidents” — which didn’t involve physical contact with women and, as noted in the small type, involved charges that later were dismissed — are in the same realm as far worse transgressions.
They aren’t.
(It’s also jarring to note the contrast as some members of the Denver media continue to lionize ex-Broncos linebacker- turned-actor Bill Romanowski as a lovable rogue. I’d say it’s because he’s in show biz now, but even as a player, he got sympathetic coverage from those he cozied up to, and he still draws affectionate reaction from fans here who remember his career fondly. Barry Bonds only wishes he could get that kind of sympathetic treatment.)
In this instance, it shows disrespect for the system to not acknowledge that when charges are dropped, as happened with both Graham and Roy, it often is for justified reasons that have little to do with their “celebrity” status — except, perhaps, that authorities can bend over backward to avoid showing favoritism.
Domestic abuse is a plague, and the frequency of athletes’ involvement is shameful and troubling. Again, Marshall’s alleged actions are, if proven to be true, disgusting. The same is true for actors and lawyers and anyone else whose transgressions don’t make it into the newspapers.
That doesn’t mean anyone ever named in a police report deserves the implication that they should be painted with the same brush as others whose actions are far more deplorable.
It’s unfair.
I also don’t understand why so many of the same folks who run their opinions through a “sensitivity” strainer before expressing them, or who see nothing wrong with determining fairness through categorization and a calculator, so readily indulge in “anti-jock” stereotyping — the sort of unfairness they usually abhor.
And I don’t think it’s insensitive to say so.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
