StarCat/CatStar

The Murderers and Rapists You Hate to
Love: Why the NFL’s Narrative Needs a
Radical Rewrite (RANT)
by Adam Phillips
When Teddy Mitrosilis of FOX Sports says, laudatorily, that Jameis Winston
had “fully embraced his role as villain in college football, and is now feeding off the
animus directed Florida State's way,” you ought to be deeply disturbed, and here's
why: this scintillating aura of villainy can only emanate from one possible source.
Winston didn't tie a lady to the train tracks or hold the president for ransom. His
dastardly reputation stems from the public perception that he's a rapist. That's
the element of his persona that has elevated Jameis Winston from superstar to
folk antihero.
Winston, according to Mitrosilis, not only reveled in his role as reprobate, he
absorbed our Puritanical hatred, distilling it into power on the gridiron. Following
this logic, the accusations of sexual assault have not only bolstered his
reputation, they’ve transformed him into a better football player.
The writer then encourages us to reflect, for a moment, on our diminished
college-football-watching-life-after-Winston, now that we no longer have access to
these off-field “antics” that have produced such “an incredible on-field character.”
He then predicts, with nostalgia and a hint of recrimination, that we’re going to
“miss [Winston] more than [we] realize.” And here we start to feel a little foolish.
With all of our high minded moral objections to sexual assault, we’d lost sight of
the true meaning of rape, which is to generate heightened interest in Seminole
football games.
Apologists frequently return to the spurious idea that athletes exist under
such hot media lights that even the tiniest of indiscretions, unremarkable in
civilian life, tend to imprecate severe punishment upon the superstar. Now, to a
certain point, this reasoning is sound. If I walk through my place of work rubbing
my fingers and thumbs together in a “show me the money” gesture, people might
think I'm an idiot, but crews of fully grown men won't sit around arguing the
morality of it for six months. This rationalization falls apart, however, when
applied to a hypothetical scenario where I've stolen, destroyed personal property,
been accused of sexual assault, stolen again, then sexually harassed and
intimidated everyone within earshot by standing on a table screaming “F**k her