Maybe I'll root for the Ravens

Not every football player is homophobic. Terrell Suggs of the Ravens countered Chris Culliver's homophobia with these remarks:

Asked if he would have a problem with a gay teammate, Suggs answered, “Absolutely not.” Suggs then added that the rest of the team would welcome a gay teammate as well.
“We wouldn’t have a problem with it,” Suggs said. “We don’t care. Our biggest thing in the locker room is to just have fun and stay loose. We don’t really care too much about that. We’re a football team. I said it yesterday; everybody deserves a certain amount of privacy. Who cares? Whatever a person’s choice is, it’s their choice.”
Suggs said the Ravens’ locker room is a welcoming environment.
“On this team, with so many different personalities, we just accept people for who they are and we don’t really care too much about a player’s sexuality,” Suggs said. “To each their own. You know who you are, and we accept you for it.”

Hmmm. If I root for the Ravens, I'm rooting for the sexy manager. Hmmmmmmmm.

The public humiliation of athletes

I'm pleased that the Giants won yesterday. After all the doubts and snide remarks, they're heading to the super bowl. But the game that stays with me is the earlier one between the Ravens and Patriots.

In the last minute of the game, Ravens' kicker Billy Cundiff blew his team's chance to get to the super bowl. All he had to do was kick the ball a meager distance to get a field goal that would have tied the game -- and he blew it.

Will anyone remember anything else from this guy's career? It took a few seconds to make the kick but those seconds will haunt him for the rest of his life. Athletes pay such a high price for these public failures. It's brutal. Here's one excerpt from the article:

Will he be back kicking field goals for the Ravens in 2012? It’s hard to see it after his critical mistake. You know the fans won’t be forgiving him anytime soon.

The guy's life is ruined. And all he did was miss one kick (after kicking well early in the game). For that failure, everyone's calling him a "choke artist" today. It's sad. One lousy kick!