[sportscurmudgeon]

Let me call time out here for a moment.

I did not say that LaVar Arrington had ANYTHING in common with Hitler or Charles Manson or any other people on my list of irrational leaders. What I said was that rrational leaders usually are "cult figures" and they usually don't wind up in a good place. That was an explanation as to why reasonable and credibile and rational leadership was important and valuable. So in case anyone still misunderstands:

1. Hitler, Manson, Jones and Koresh were BAD leaders and probably BAD people at heart.

2. LaVar Arrington is NOT a BAD person at heart and so far has not shown enough leadership skills for us to know if he is skilled at that or not.


It is fine for him to react emotionally to losing a football game. After all, he gets paid to win football games; football is probably what he has spent more time on than anyuthing else in his life. But it begins to stretch credibility when he says that this was one of the worst things he's ever had to endure - - especialy when he says virtually the same thing every Monday on the radio after the Skins lose. And doubly expecially because he's been through enough of these horrendous times to begin to put them into perspective as a rational and thinking adult.

What I said was that losing a football game is not pleasant but there are tragedies that fall into people's lives that are so significantly greater than losing a football game that it makes LaVar sound either irrational or shallow or self-absorbed or whatever for him to say that over and over again.

I know that LaVar Arrington is a fine football player and therefore it behooves all Redskin fans to want to believe that everything he does and says is noble in its intent and gracious. Unfortunatelly that is not always the case.

I'll go out on a limb here and draw another analogy. Buffalo Bills fans adored OJ and many of them never wanted to believe that he could ever do something that was dastardly or destructive. Same with Panther fans and Rae Carruth. But "stuff" happens.

NOTE: I did NOT say LaVar is or ever will be involved in a murder situation nor do I think there is much of chance that he will. What I am trying to illustrate is that people who are good athletes tend to be turned into heroic figures that can do and say no wrong by adoring fans. But in the real world, sometimes the fans are - horribly - wrong.