Very interesting Peyton Manning article

Toulon I have no problem with people's insatiable desire for dirty laundry IF the person whose dirty laundry it is is a high profile person who accepts a ton of public pedestalization and presents an image of wholesomeness. I think Peyton qualifies here so bringing up something that was ALREADY public isn't dredging up anything. It was already out there 20 years ago. If he did it, sadly, he's getting away with it as to public opinion, again, because he could throw a football well. I think that's a bigger evil than the insatiable desire to dig up dirty laundry.

It's not Manning's fault he's famous. He might appear to be wholesome because he is wholesome. He deserves the same privacy as anyone else. I did some stupid shit when I was in my early 20's, paid the price, learned from it and am a better person, husband, father and grandfather because of some of those lessons. Do you or anyone else have an entitlement to know about it? HELL NO - whether I am famous or not!

Toulon Steve...He is wholesome? Whaaaaaat? How do you know this? You wish for it to be true, therefore, the story at Tennessee must not be true in order to keep that view. That's total subjectivity.

I did not say he was wholesome nor do I wish it to be so (how would you know what I wish?). Let me reword that sentence. Has it occurred to you that his wholesome image might be accurate? I never said the story isn't true - I said it's nobody's business. I'm not defending Manning. I don't give a shit what happened. I am disgusted with everyone's drama-queen search for smut.

MidwayJ ....OR...to protect my image I would dip back into the old archives and dredge the past myself to make sure anyone who thought I wasn't a really good guy, did.

The truth is we don't know these guys. We get to see what they want us to see. That story is something he didn't want us to see. Does it mean he had a pattern of mistreating women prior and after or just the one isolated incident if indeed it happened that way?

The best course of action, to me, is to NEVER put anyone on a pedestal. There's simply no reason to do it. As you noted, we all are imperfect and none of us would want our worst stuff out there.

I truly hope he didn't do that and never did it prior or after.

Also, you're right...if you didn't do it you'd really want to talk about it to make sure everyone knew that you were incensed about it. He does react vociferously to these kinds of things. If we find out that he actually did take HGH, I think some of his past history will have to be filtered through that.

Just happy to see the disparity in media coverage between Manning's indiscretions and others lessoned somewhat. Peyton has enjoyed being on a pedestal for most of his career. Turns out he may not be the choir boy the media has made him out to be. The blind faith gushing by the media has seemingly been undeserved.

Also, the reason this story has resurfaced is because of the current (sexual assault) lawsuit against Tennessee. In that regard what the Manning 'teabagging' incident shows is that athletes bad behavior have been given preferential treatment by colleges / universities for a long time.

Lots of stuff going on here. The motivation behind releasing the article, for starters, or better yet - the republishing of an old story that was put to rest many years earlier, but now suddenly is this world-stopping crisis that the DOJ needs to look into pronto.

It seems that Shaun King had enough of the Cam Newton bashing the coming days after the game, and was using the opportunity in an attempt to point out the double standard between an African American quarterback being grilled for allegedly being a "phony" versus the white man's hero in Manning, who he obviously feels is treated substantially different. Now there could obviously be arguments either way, no question. But to use that opportunity to single out Manning, particularly as it related to water under a bridge that hasn't existed for going on 20 years now? Hey. Just look at the timing. Look at the underlying motivation here. That's all I'm saying.

And for what it's worth - I don't hold it against Cam for being upset and acting like a spoiled brat. He was obviously upset with himself and wasn't in the mood to talk about it. He'll learn from it and move on. Nor do I think (nor care really!) if Cam Newton is a phony.

Kristine Leahy (Colin Cowherd's co-host on his sports talk show) made a very interesting observation yesterday. "I know someone personally who deals with these star athletes on a regular basis, and he said to me, "Kristine - if you knew how most of these people really are behind the scenes, how they treat other people - you wouldn't want to be friends with any of them.""

Wow. Imagine that. Famous people who treat people badly. I guess it's a good thing that Kristine's friend doesn't deal with all of these political phonies in DC, who spend their entire careers shitting on people.

So no, we don't know anything other than the perception we get from watching them on television. Yet at the same time - is it a crime against humanity to "want" to believe that some of them are actually good, decent people who've not forgotten where they came from, or what it felt like not living in the homes they live in, driving the cars they drive in, enjoying the lifestyles they enjoy? Case in point - I watched Vaughn Taylor win the tournament Sunday at Pebble Beach. He's 39-yrs-old, hadn't won a tournament in over 10 years. He was far from being the prototypical worldly top-10 golf stud who travels from venue to venue each week in a personal jet. In fact - he revealed that he crammed everything he could into a single carry-on bag so he wouldn't have to pay an additional baggage fee, FLYING ECONOMY on a commercial flight to LA, simply because he was lucky enough to be picked as an alternate to get into the tournament. He had no status, he was ranked 400+ in the world, he didn't even have a secured spot to play on any tour. We're talking a guy so far down on the totem pole that the average golf fan probably didn't know him from Vince Vaughn.

Yet when he won - you could tell that he was genuinely overcome by this sudden happiness, that his life had changed. It meant the world to him. And I'm sure that I'm not alone when I said, "hey, good for him. He seems like a really good guy."

And he probably is. But based on today's societal standard - we need to make sure that Vaughn Taylor is a good guy before we assume anything! Vaughn, what was the party life like at Augusta State, buddy? Bang any hot chicks while you were there? Ever drop your genitals on a female trainer's forehead while she stuck her finger in your ass checking your prostate? What about alcohol? Did you ever drink and drive? Maybe cheat on a college exam? Maybe playfully haze a fellow student athlete by spraying shaving cream in his golf shoes his freshman year? Ever smoke any weed, sniff anything, inhale anything, consume anything that might've given you the slightest edge standing over a 1-footer in a college tournament?

We need the damned details, man! Otherwise we're not supposed to appreciate your victory, dammit! And we sure as hell don't want to be accused of showing any type of support toward you should it turn out that you're not who you really are, after the fact! So stop putting yourself on this damned pedestal, fella. Don't win. Don't be successful, not if you have something, anything, in your life's closet that you're not proud of.

Shaun King, back to this guy. Political activist, big BLM supporter. Never found a cause he couldn't get behind, especially if it creates opportunities to raise money. Except, uh, apparently there are questions surfacing by some of the BLM supporters themselves, wondering where some of the charity proceeds from some of King's so-called fundraising went.

Second lesson for today - know the source. It generally helps with credibility if the source just so happens to not have any skeletons in his own closet.

Now... this isn't a diversion. It's not my desire to bring someone else down, to question their credibility, or to point out the hypocritical nature of man. But if you're going to take what someone says at face value, you should at the very least make the smallest attempt to understand potential motives and agendas.

If evidence exists that Peyton Manning sexually harassed women throughout his professional career - investigate. Find out. Put him in front of a judge and jury and let him plead his case. If evidence exists that Manning did HGH, or took any other type of illegal substance that is prohibited per the rules of the NFL - investigate. Find out.
But if evidence does not exist, understand that your opinion, my opinion, whoever else's opinion - doesn't mean shit. It just means that you (like myself, like many of us who aren't involved in the behind-the-scenes lives of professional athletes) only know what you think you know. And often times, what we think we know isn't necessarily the truth.

I'm not a huge Manning fan. I just think people are way off base rushing to judgement about shit that they don't really know much about.

Using your standard we really can't comment on anything because how do we really know? We do know the sexual assault case was settled and then Peyton went ahead and defamed her again in his book (had to settle again). Classy guy. Nobody that I know of said women (plural). He was accused of sexually assaulting a woman and settled the case.

Vaughn Taylor was never put on a pedestal like Peyton Manning was. Your continued attempts to brush this off as some minor youthful indiscretion and we really don't know what happened with the different accounts etc. etc. is noble, but extremely lame IMO.

Here's an article giving more (very detailed) information.

http://deadspin.com/how-tennessee-s-sexual-harassment-allegations-caught-up-1759118435

"Q. Let me be very clear there. It was not just his behind, his rear end, that was on your face, but his genitalia was in your face?

A. That’s correct. It was the gluteus maximus, the rectum, the testicles, and the area in between the testicles. And all of that was on my face when I pushed him up and off. And it was like this and as I pushed him up to get leverage, I took my head out to push him up and off.

... I pushed him off of me and I said, “You’re an ass.”