Courtesy: Fox Sports Florida
One common misconception that outsiders may have about athletes is that they like all of their teammates.
If you have seen or heard anything about the bullying situation going on in the Miami Dolphins locker room involving offensive lineman Richie Incognito and his fellow lineman teammate Jonathan Martin, you will realize that sometimes, teammates can cross the line between hazing and threatening someone’s physical or emotional well-being.
I want to first and foremost say that everybody involved in this situation is wrong in some regards except for Jonathan Martin. The Miami Dolphins, head coach Joe Philbin, Richie Incognito, the leadership counsel, etc. There is no reason something this ridiculous should ever go on in any professional sports locker room… ever.
If you want to see what exactly he has done to ridicule and ruin Jonathan Martin’s young NFL career, here’s a snippet from Deadspin.com.
Looking at Richie Incognito, he is what I like to call a “smart bully”. He is one of those guys who actually is a talented football player and could mask his awful personality by literally going incognito because his play did the talking and no one actually heard about his troubled nature.
What do you want to know about this scumbag? Let’s start at college…
In the spring of 2003 at the University of Nebraska, he was suspended by head coach Frank Solich for undisclosed reasons, but was reinstated at the start of the season and started 13 games at left tackle. He was listed on the Associated Press’ First-team All-Big 12 team. In February of 2004, Incognito was charged on three counts of assault for a fight at a party and was later found guilty on one of the misdemeanor assault charges and was fined $500. That year, he named a preseason watch list for the Rimington Trophy as one of the nation’s best centers because he switched positions, but on Sept. 1, he was suspended from the Cornhuskers once again for recurring violations of team rules and withdrew from every class he signed up for at Nebraska. A quitter… a coward… usual traits for a bully.
He then decided to transfer to the University of Oregon a few weeks later, but was dismissed from the team after only a week. Ducks head Mike Bellotti said Incognito was asked to obey a strict code of conduct and participate in an anger management class, but it seems as if he didn’t do what the program wanted. A guy who goes to the beat of his own drum and doesn’t care about those around him… sounds like a bully to me.
Courtesy: 247miami.tv
The 30-year-old then makes it to the NFL as the St. Louis Rams drafted him in the third round of the 2005 NFL Draft. To give you an idea of his physical skills, the 6-foot-3, 305-pound lineman ran a 4.84 40-yard dash and did 29 reps on the bench press. He played there until the end of the 2009 season. On Dec. 13, 2009, the St. Louis Rams were getting blown out by the Tennessee Titans and Incognito drew two 15-yard penalities for headbutting Titans players and getting called for unsportsmanlike conduct. After head coach Steve Spagnuolo benched the nutcase for losing his mind on the field, he got into a heated argument with the head coach of the football team. It was the second time that season he had been asked to sit on the bench for two silly personal fouls as committed two in the season opener against the Seattle Seahawks. With the Titans games, he was released two days later, fined $50,000 from the NFL and warned that he could possibly be grounds for suspension. During his stint with the Rams, Incognito drew 38 penalties, seven of which were unnecessary roughness — Incognito had the most such penalties in the league during that timeframe of 2006-2009. Someone who doesn’t abide by the rules and doesn’t think they ever need to be held accountable… sounds like a bully to me.
After a brief stint in Buffalo following his release from the Rams, Incognito comes to Miami and it seems like his career takes a turn for the better on the field… somewhat. In 2012, Incognito was selected to his first Pro Bowl as a professional football player. He was also given the “Good Guy Award” from the South Florida Chapter of the Pro Football Writers Association, along with then teammate Reggie Bush, for helping the media do its job the best by providing excellent quotes and being friendly. He has also been mentioned as one of the NFL’s dirtiest players, finishing second only behind the Detroit Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh.
Which brings me to what has happened with Martin. The blatant racism by calling him a half N-bomb is completely unacceptable in society. What he said about Martin’s family and about Martin being a young player and his treatment of rookies is heinous and evil. The idea that according to this Chicago Tribune report, Dolphins coaches asked Incognito to toughen up Martin after missing a voluntary workout in the spring and this is how he decided to go about it is completely uncalled for. Sounds like something from the movie “A Few Good Men” right? And the sad part is in all of this, most of the Dolphins teammates are standing by Incognito. And the sad part is, the bullying isn’t just limited to Jonathan Martin as other young players have been asked to do things no human should be forced to do as because they are rookies as shown in this article from Deadspin.com.
Some may say that Martin is soft and needs to stand up to another grown man and be the bigger man and just ignore it. Before this story came to light and before he decided to leave the team to fix his emotional health, he probably was by not acknowledging him. However, what Martin didn’t realize, and what most victims of bullies don’t realize when they are being bullied, is that the bully will always be persistent in their attacks on you no matter what. Just think about the $15,000 Martin gave to Incognito and some of his other Dolphins teammates for a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada that they went on, but he didn’t want to attend. To keep them away, he figured he could just give them the money and go on his way. Unfortunately, he found out the hard way.
Courtesy: CBSSports.com
For those that call Martin “soft” or a “wuss” for storming out of the Dolphins team cafeteria after the entire team got up and sat at another table from him, those people are truly as sick and twisted as the Dolphins themselves. It’s different when there appears to be a practical joke going around, but obviously, this has been going on a lot longer than we have known and hence why Martin broke down, snapped, and left football.
Think about it… wouldn’t you do the same if you were the victim of bullying from your teammates?
Yes, I understand that you’re not going to like all of your teammates and they aren’t always going to like you, but all Martin wants to do is live out his dream, play professional football, enjoy the game he loves and provide for his family. Richie Incognito and the Miami Dolphins as an organization are terrible in their handling of this situation and that is why they will never be a good football team. They have no integrity and there is no possible way that they didn’t suspect and know anything about this issue.
The sad thing is, people have bullied and/or have been bullied at some point or another throughout their lives. Maybe, I’m a little hot on this issue because I myself was a bully toward someone and was bullied at various points of my life by both men and women. I am not proud to say I was a bully to some people, nor am I proud to say I was a victim of bullying and didn’t say or do a thing about it. Bully victims are in a lesser sense like rape victims in that it is such a bad act toward another human being, that while it is something that people must live with, it happened and can’t ever be forgotten.
I don’t know if you happened to hear about the case of Colorado Avalanche goalie Seymon Varlamov involving domestic violence with his girlfriend, but if that isn’t a heinous act of bullying, especially considering he hit a woman, I don’t know what is. That poor woman will live in fear the rest of her life because of this bully physically and emotionally abusing her. You can listen to my thoughts on the situation HERE.
Courtesy: Yahoo! Sports
To me, bullies are nothing more than cowards who are afraid of the person they are bullying. Their behavior is despicable and they don’t care or realize that they are offending the other person. They do it because berating and destroying another human being’s self confidence gives them the boost they need to make it through the day. I have been on both ends of the spectrum and it isn’t something I’ve ever talked about publicly other than with maybe a few family members and friends.
I was a “nerd” growing up in middle school and even though I was involved in athletics, I wasn’t protected from the prototypical “jock” stereotype because I wasn’t that kind of person. I’m not an aggressive person by nature and those who had that personality would always try to get to me when I was at school. I never talked about what was said, I tried to live with it. I would always try to ignore it, but sometimes, a human being can’t take it anymore and they lash out. Violence wasn’t the answer and violence wasn’t what I used to solve the problem. I told a responsible adult and they tried to talk to the bully and punish them from certain privileges we received at school during recess hours. I hadn’t realized I had added more fuel to the fire and the bullying persisted and only made things worse. It wasn’t until I finally graduated from that school and my bully went to different high school that I was able to escape the constant harassment and degrading statements. But that time period had a profound effect on my life.
I became more sheltered in high school. I never was a talkative kid and always have been a “softy” at heart, so I was afraid to open up to certain people because I was afraid of the bullying potential. Sometimes, you develop thick skin over time and luckily for me, I wasn’t bullied in high school, but I did bully other people which showed me that I really learned nothing from what happened to me as a younger child. It wasn’t the right decision. It never is. I didn’t use violence, but the name-calling and jokes went too far sometimes and you don’t realize how offensive you can be until you remember that you once were in their shoes.
And then it happened to me again… by a woman, whose name will be redacted.
I was in a relationship with a woman not too long ago. Someone I cared deeply about and someone who I thought cared deeply about me. It was clearly a misconception on my part and while we weren’t together long, I was too blind to see what was happening before my eyes. I had lost my identity as a person. I had become and done everything the bully wanted me to do. I did chores, some self-imposed and some not, to combat the constant attacks on my character, changed so many things about myself and received constant criticisms and berating statements about things that the common man wouldn’t say about another human being. I was even chastised for the way that I breathed and just so I could sleep next to my girlfriend at night, I performed breathing exercises to try and appease the situation. It just goes to show that a bullying victim will do just about anything to try and combat the situation, kind of like how Martin fronted his teammates 15 grand for a trip he didn’t attend. This is also kind of like when select rookies on the Dolphins paid for a $30,000 dinner. In regards to my bully, I said nothing and did nothing about it because I didn’t realize what was going on. Plus, I didn’t want to stand up to the person in fear of losing them because I didn’t realize I was in a destructive relationship from the start.
It came to a head one day when she had asked me to change careers and go for something that could earn me more money and that’s when it hit me. That person didn’t care about the person I was, they were legitimately trying to formulate their own selfish life by using me to better themselves and raise their own self-esteem by shaping me into the ideal human being in the image they wanted me to be. They tried to play “God” like most bullies do and when I did what Jonathan Martin did and snapped, the bully was left speechless. I probably didn’t handle it the right way like Martin did because I lashed out in sadness and anger instead of doing the right thing; the best thing to do was to remove myself from the situation like he did and seek guidance from a third party, but I didn’t do that.
I stayed in the relationship much to the dismay of my friends and family because they could see what was happening and I wasn’t. Finally, once I took a stand for myself and the bully realized they could no longer control me, the bully left me, via a phone call, like a true bullying coward would do as to avoid controversy, to never see me again the week she was home from college for Spring Break. She left to party with her friends at a bar, while I sat at home, alone, with no plans and without the person I had done so much for and given up so much for. She had even told me this: “I only was with you because I needed you. I knew I could take advantage of you so I did.” I had become so obsessed with the pain, so obsessed with the idea of her not being with me and so obsessed with being sad, that I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t enjoy any of my hobbies, my job, anything because everything was attacked and viewed as unworthy. I had gotten to the point where I did what Martin didn’t do and I commend him for that: I tried to bully the bully by becoming a psychopath like Richie Incognito. I caused chaos within my family, my friends didn’t know who I was, but worst of all, I had terrified the bully, the person I had cared about the most, by trying to become the bully in order to make the pain go away. Guess what? It made things worse. It made me realize that like Jonathan Martin, I had a lot more problems in my own life than I had realized. That is why I am so inclined to support anything Jonathan Martin does in regards to this situation because he handled it the right way, instead of how I did. Both of us are ashamed, but for different reasons. Martin is ashamed because he felt as if he was going through the growing pains of the NFL, when it all actuality, he’s pretty much facing an uphill battle where it’s the Dolphins, lead by Incognito, versus him. I am ashamed not only because of the bullying, but because of the way I reacted to it. It showed me that I still had a lot of learning to do and that nothing is more cowardly than trying to cheap out on God’s path for you by ending it on your own terms. I had hurt so many people around me, including the bully by arguing and trying to battle back the wrong way, that I didn’t know how to react because I had never been hit with such a curveball in my life.
Much like Jonathan Martin, I didn’t know what it was like to feel worthless because I had never felt such damage in my life up and until that breaking point. You may or may not know what it feels like to be considered worthless, but I can guarantee that Jonathan Martin feels pretty worthless right now. What happens is: you cry, you cry, you cry and you yell because your heart and soul escapes you and your brain functions absent of logic. Like Martin, I lost a lot of friends, two best friends, in the process for the way I had reacted and while some of my other friends and family tried to help, only I could overcome the grief… just like Martin. His entire team stands up for the guy who has made his life a living Hell his first two years in the NFL and all he wants to do is play the game he loves with a group of guys he goes to battle with. He reached a breaking point much like I did and it probably reached the point where he asked himself, like I did, “How and when will this horrible nightmare end?” It wasn’t the right thing to do because people deserve better than that. I guess I can relate to Jonathan Martin in that we both reached breaking points and when it all came to a head, and we couldn’t take anymore, we took the most extreme measures possible, whether right or wrong.
I never publicly talked about my emotional breakdown from this incident but with a few people close to me because I was embarrassed to say, “I was bullied by my girlfriend.” The girl called me a “pussy”, not in a joking manner, among other things that labeled me as soft. Call me soft all you want. I could care less. Sometimes, you give people too many opportunities to take advantage of you and it just leaves you hurt, but eventually, when you make that stand, you rise up and the bully never wins. I can honestly say today that it still bothers me to this day and will probably affect the way I live the rest of my life because of how scarred I was from the bullying. I became a shell of the person I once was and I know that Jonathan Martin is probably going through a similar situation and may or may not ever recover from this because he never once received positive reinforcement from the organization that chose him to be on their football team. But like all sad stories, especially the one with Martin, usually, things take turns for the better and eventually, growth occurs.
The bully eventually returned to me via a few phone calls back and forth and she had just been removed from a destructive relationship herself where ironically enough, they were dumped by a cheating coward via text message. It’s funny how life works when the tables are turned and how someone can think of you differently, come to you to try and be consoled because they know you’ll be there for them, yet still not hold themselves accountable for the pain and suffering they caused you. I didn’t and probably shouldn’t have done this, but I asked to see the bully and initially, they agreed, then flaked, then agreed. And when it came time to try and reunite and hash out our differences, the bully tried to once again control me as I sat at a coffee shop for an hour, alone, waiting and I reminded myself that I couldn’t let that happen again. The conversations we had involved more “I” and “me” statements from the bully’s end and more “you” statements from my end. Then, the bully called me selfish because I turned the tables and said, “What about me? Don’t you ever consider the effects you had on my emotional well-being? Do you know how hard it is to overcome such a mental breakdown, especially when you hurt the ones you love in the process?” While I may not have done it the conventional way, especially considering the pain I had caused her as well, I was able to stand up to that bully and make a stand again and it’s the best thing I have ever done. I cried my eyes out, but it made me feel so much better. It sucks because still to this day, even after all of the torment and anguish that happened between us, I know that I would drop everything I had if that woman was ever in need, and I would never expect an award or her to return the favor, nor would I want one because I never want that person in my life ever again. Believe it or not, I have no ill will towards my bully because I was no better by trying to bully her. The true measure of a man in my eyes is being able to serve others even when you know that they won’t serve you and nor should you do kind acts expecting kindness to be returned. Good deeds are good deeds and should be that. I’m sure Jonathan Martin would do anything for his teammates, but right now, they aren’t his teammates… they are all bullies. Bullies don’t see the tears. Bullies don’t hear the cries. Bullies don’t care about the pain. We’ve all been engaged in some spectrum of bullying because people are all messed up in their own deranged way… it just so happens that some persist with hatred and pass the point of ridiculousness like Richie Incognito.
You may be asking: “Why would Jeff talk about one of his ex-girlfriends and childhood peers bullying him in connection to Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin?”
The moral of the story is that Martin did exactly would he should have done. He removed himself from the situation and stood up for himself to get his life back in order. Through all of the pain, tears and suffering, I can tell him from a personal experience that it is going to take awhile for him to get over it. Incognito is going to get exactly what he deserves like all bullies do once they finally get outed and are punished for their acts either in life or by law. Incognito should know that you never threaten the life of someone or insult their mother and play it off like you did nothing wrong. There’s a special place reserved for guys like Incognito and it’s not called the NFL…
I applaud Jonathan Martin for standing up for what is right. Call him a wuss, call me a wuss, call any bullying victim a wuss all you want. Everybody has thick skin and some thicker than others. What all must realize is that not everyone is “built Ford tough” in terms of their personality and demeanor toward other individuals. It’s different if you’re insulting someone as to joke with them, but harassment and constant jokes and constant berating without stopping to the point of threatening others, is something no human being deserves.
Courtesy: Zimbio.com
