Guilty Until Proven Innocent: The People v. Richard Sherman

The public response to Richard Sherman's outbursts at the end of Sunday's NFC Championship game reveal the conflicted perceptions and complicated history of African American athletes in the national media and within sports. Attacks directed at Sherman on social media have run the gamut from racist to reprehensive as words like “thug” have been used to describe the philanthropic South Central LA native who graduated from Stanford with a master's degree.

Accusations of poor sportsmanship and “lack of grace” during victory are worlds away from our country’s infatuation with the gladiator culture that defined professional sports when coach Vince Lombardi’s mantra of “winning is everything” was synonymous with greatness instead of a major character flaw.

The second episode of director Ken Burns’ excellent documentary, Baseball, entitled Something like a War, examines player Ty Cobb’s personal account of his mental and physical approach to the game. A talented and fierce competitor, Cobb established a reputation as a major baseball attraction during a time when base hits, bunts and fielding epitomized baseball.

Before the Barry Bonds and A-Rod controversies, Cobb sharpened his spikes before games to gauge players gaining an advantage to become the all-time leader in stolen bases---a record that stood for thirty years even after LA Dodger Maury Wills broke the record.

Just as major league founding fathers preserved the gentlemen's clause barring baseball’s integration, an asterisk was attached Wills' record due to a technicality, extending the historic value of the Georgia Peach's record just a little longer until the St. Louis Cardinals’ Lou Brock finally broke the record, spikes intact-- in 1977.

Before World Peace Metta, Cobb defended his honor by going into the stands and assaulting a disabled heckler who taunted his physical appearance, implying he might be a Negro. Off the field, Cobb was an avowed racist who once slapped a black elevator operator he considered insolent and disrespectful. Somehow baseball ignored his transgressions by selecting him to join baseball's inaugural elite class and other avowed segregationists Rogers Hornsby and Cap Anson at Cooperstown.

The brash, aloof nature and killer instinct of Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe and Joe Di Maggio is off limits to the Williams sisters. Super Bowl champ Kurt Warner's modest Christian values are touted as sincere while Ray Lewis' passionate spirituality is met with public skepticism and ridicule. "Punky QB" Jim McMahon and "Broadway" Joe Namath's rebellious nature was celebrated while Deion Sanders “Prime Time" disrupt the status quo.

Personal perception of images is not confined to selective and systemic preference. Reality TV personality Damien Wayans admonishment of Sherman for “setting black people back thirty years” was probably what older fans of the stoic demeanor Floyd Patterson, Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson thought when they encountered Muhammad Ali, whose cockiness reminded America of the repulsive image of Jack Johnson and his female traveling companions.

 It is intriguing that Wayans, hailing from a family of comic royalty known for pushing racial stereotypes would make comments normally reserved for the proud "race men" who predated the "black and proud' era of the 1960's.

The generational paradox continues as World Peace called out boxing legend Larry Holmes for criticizing Money Mayweather, challenging him to uplift the community unaware that Holmes made the difficult transition from grade school dropout to world champion.

Holmes choose to reside and reinvest in his hometown acquiring lucrative real estate holdings for a time keeping it more realer than Ron-Ron, the Tru-Warrior from the Queensbridge Projects who shed his troublemaker/bad boy image by changing his name and reinventing himself as a "hippie" from La-La land.

Holmes knows a thing or two about the power of public relations, given his reputation for jumping from cars engaging in public dustups while on camera or being the object of scrutiny during the divisive Holmes-Cooney matches that pitted the Ali disciple against boxing’s “great white hope.”

The Easton Assassin’s controversial remarks about Rocky Marciano ("he couldn't carry my jockstrap) angered boxing purists who considered the Marciano the true champion based on his perfect record of 49-0. Holmes' plain-speak was a throwback to Sonny Liston. Tired of not receiving the respect that he deserved, he took the bait when he was asked questions about Marciano. Holmes’ winning streak stopped at 48 after a controversial loss to Michael Spinks. Holmes felt he was robbed because of his remarks about the beloved fighter. Holmes competitive fire was misconstrued as disrespect.

 Jackie Robinson held the pressure in for years and when he finally let it out he found himself slightly out of step in a society that struggled embrace him as the man he really was--a confident and educated man with strong opinions and attitudes instead of the passive social trailblazer image he was confined too. Stress induced diabetes claimed his body and sight prematurely before succumbed at age 53, still a relatively young man.

Allen Iverson, Chad Johnson and Terrell Owens are years removed from past triumphs and are now experiencing the tragedy of being on the outside looking in after dominating in their respective sports. Only they know whether or not if their casualties were self-induced, as result of flirting with the edge like Icarus flying too close to the sun.

Only the future can tell how Sherman will fare. His sense of self can become his greatest gift or his own worse enemy.

 

The verdict is still out. Let's hope his chapter ends better than most.