Outside the Box: Blame the bully, not the bullied
Football is a demanding game, emotionally and physically; even more so is that true in the National Football League. So when reports surfaced recently that a Miami Dolphin lineman had so bullied a teammate as to result in that player leaving the team to seek counseling, I wasn’t surprised by much of the responses I heard.
Most of the commentary revolved around the idea they couldn’t wrap their mind around a full grown man being bullied and an NFL player to boot.
“But he’s an NFL player – how do you bully a huge NFL player?” I heard more than a few times on sports talk radio.
That’s a telling reminder that much of sports culture still doesn’t grasp the pervasive and humiliating nature of bullying. Implying someone is immune to bullying because of their size or profession is exactly the wrong way to look at the issue of bullying – whether it’s kids on the playground or a professional sports locker room.
The circumstances of the Richie Incognito-Jonathan Martin bullying imbroglio the NFL is now investigating, while clearly unique in its own way, really matters very little in the victim/victimizer paradigm. One person is still singling out another for emotional, psychological and/or physical abuse for a reason only the bully is aware. Taking the stance a 6-foot-5, 315-pound man being bullied seems unlikely, misses the point entirely.
The bully is to blame, not the bullied.
The NFL and the player’s union have both launched probes into the Incognito-Martin matter. What they find could do much to stem the bullying epidemic.
The NFL has a real chance here to say something on the issue of bullying. The league has done great things with its “Play 60” and “Head’s Up” campaigns, teaching kids to be active and use proper football tackling techniques to prevent injuries, respectively. But they were behind the curve on drugs (both performance enhancing and recreational) and the impact of concussions. This is a chance to be in the front on bullying. It’s a chance for those same 6-foot-5, 300-pound men to say “It’s not OK to bully.”
To be sure, the NFL is a strange workplace; one where going to tell the boss you’re having an issue with a co-worker is shunned. And sports locker rooms are known to have their own ritualistic quirks from Kangaroo courts, to bounties on opposing players to hazing rookies. But a world as insular as professional sports doesn’t mean it’s immune to real world problems. Racism. Homophobia. Bullying. Those are real problems and they deserve real consideration. If the NFL is truly a business and a co-worker feels he is being harassed by a fellow co-worker, that’s not hijinks, it’s criminal.
Reports have since surfaced that Incognito was persuaded by his coaches to “toughen up” Martin. That doesn’t clear Incognito of the allegations he went too far, nor does it say much for the Miami Dolphin leadership. Incognito’s racist, hate-filled, violent messages and texts were his. Even with tacit approval of coaches, the ProBowl lineman wasn’t forced to send them. Whether that makes this an isolated incident of aggressive motivation by someone with anger management issues, which Incognito has been treated for in the past, or a systemic problem with the NFL is a troubling question.
The message that can’t be gleaned from the incident is that bullying is OK if done by above average sized adults playing a physically and emotionally demanding sport like football. There is potential here to move the needle for the good on bullying.
Martin isn’t weak for walking away. He isn’t soft for wanting the abuse to stop. He endured two seasons of intense antagonism and sought help when he could no longer tolerate it. That took guts. Many of his peers won’t feel that way, I’m sure. They’ll see it as weakness and Martin knew that, I assume. Maybe the moral here is exactly that. Bullying victims aren’t always the scrawny kids on the playground. They can be big strong NFL lineman too. It’s time someone spoke up for both.
Joel Stevens is the Associate Editor at the Glenwood Opinion-Tribune.