This Vince Young story is getting crazier and crazier. Now we find out that he mentioned suicide to the therapist he spoke with. Of course we don't know the details; talking about it could simply mean that he said 'no, I'm not suicidal', but we'll never get all of the info there. But now the war of words has begun, with a major grenade being thrown by the always controversial Jason Whitlock. Whitlock, as he is wont to do, criticized Young in the same vein that he rips into a lot of young black men and athletes for their style of dress and choices of whom to associate with. He also rang the alarm for the millionth time about the day when white team owners and general managers will permanently close the door on professional athletes who dress, talk, and run around with rappers and/or thugs. He even went as far as to refer back to a piece he wrote for ESPN.com where he predicted failure for Young based on he saw from him in the days leading up to the 2006 draft. He saw Young walking around with a crew of his boys and thought there could be trouble down the road, and spoke of Young's use of an untested associate to negotiate his contract as being unwise. So is Whitlock a prophet here or is he adding up two plus two to get ten?
Well, he didn't do himself any favors by clamoring for the return his one-time high school teammate Jeff George to the NFL by darn near begging Bill Belichek to sign him now that Tom Brady is out for the season. Please Jason, give it up. I know he's your boy, but he's managed to burn every bridge he had and that's his own fault. If anyone wanted him, he'd have been signed years ago. Now back to the matter at hand. To say that you knew Young would have issues simply based on what you saw from him two years ago is a bit much. Remember, as a rookie Brett Favre almost drank and partied his way out of the league. We've seen no evidence that Vince is going that route, or even partying on the level of Matt Leinart with beer bongs and coeds. So let's slow down there. As always, Whitlock takes any bit of misfortune befalling a young black athlete and finds a way to tie it to hip hop culture, keeping it real, etc. That may be true in some instances, but that doesn't make it true all the time. You can't just say that anytime a guy with tattoos, jewelry, etc. who rolls with his boys from back home gets in trouble that he got in trouble because of things. Sometimes people get shot at home, like Sean Taylor did, or get robbed in a good neighborhood like Antoine Walker.
Now all that being said, I don't think Whitlock deserves all the hate he gets from the blogoshpere. He's calling out some things he sees that could lead to some real problems down the road, things that could render a lot of able young men unemployed assuming that their potential bosses decide that production matters less than appearance. This happens in enough workplaces that it could spill over into professional sports one day. I do think he goes overboard sometimes, though, like here. At least wait for it all to play out Jason, before you put out another version of the diatribe you have locked and loaded anytime something like this happens.
Good article. Love Whitlock's articles but sometimes he takes things too far.
I think Whitlock made some very good points in his article. Young has a lot of maturing to do. I have to wonder if his teammates feel they will ever be able to fully count on him.
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