Hazing is a rite of passage in sports these days; it is an acceptable practice in professional sports, especially in the NFL. Rookies come into the league and go through a brief period of hazing from the veterans on the team to be “initiated.”
This might include carrying a teammate’s shoulder pads after practice, taking a couple of the veterans out to dinner, getting a goofy haircut, or singing and dancing in front of the whole team. But the players know it is all in good fun and just something they have to go through to be accepted. Everyone on the team, past and present, has done it and this year’s rookies will get to do it to future rookies.
When simple hazing turns into outright bullying, the issue goes into the public eye and the league is forced to take action. Hazing in the NFL is an unwritten rule, but when players start to take advantage of that to only further their anger and abuse towards other players, something needs to change.
Over the past week, the Miami Dolphins have been dealing with their own bullying situation involving offensive linemen Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin. This is not merely hazing. Evidence has surfaced that Incognito has been racially abusive and threatening through voicemails toward fellow Martin for at least the past six months. Martin is in his second year in the league, so there is no excuse on Incognito’s part to claim this is rookie hazing.
There are two sides to every story, but no one is arguing who is in the right in this case. Incognito is completely to blame and was totally out of line, but the way Martin went about handling the situation has been looked at as not being dealt with the right way. Many people feel that Martin should have confronted Incognito earlier or brought it to the attention of other players. Coaches and administrators for the Miami Dolphins organization were said to have no idea about the situation. That shouldn’t be the case; the organization should be aware of everything that happens on their team.
This might be a case where enough was enough for Martin, but he should have at least brought this to light from the beginning. He should not have been worried about what others were going to think of how he handled the situation; he needed to just handle it before it got to the point it did. Martin left the team last week because of a mysterious lunchtime incident and it is still unclear whether he will return to the Dolphins or not. Martin has said he wants to rejoin the team but that may not be the best situation for him.
There is no telling what Martin could come back to, but I’m sure it won’t be the most comfortable of situations. Martin needs to explain why he eventually came forward and why he took so long to do so. It has also come out that Martin may suffer from some mental illness, but whether that played any role has yet to be determined.
Incognito has been suspended indefinitely and there is a good chance he will never play for the Dolphins again, possibly even in the NFL. This should have been seen a mile away in the eyes of everyone involved in the NFL. Incognito has had character issues since his time in college. He was suspended from the University of Nebraska by two different coaches because of arrests dealing with assaults. He then transferred to the University of Oregon, where he only played 10 games. He was drafted into the NFL because of his athletic potential, but every team was conscious of the flaws in his personality. This was evident in 2009 when Incognito was voted “The Dirtiest Player in the NFL” by his fellow NFL players.
Incognito tried to clean up his image by starting over when he signed with the Dolphins in 2010. Later, he was named to a six-person leadership council for the team as well as being named to the Pro Bowl, NFL’s all-star game.
There are mixed feelings across the league as more and more evidence is revealed. Players and coaches who know Incognito have described two different men when talking about him. Some say he was out of line for what he said but that isn’t truly who he is and others have said that this wasn’t an isolated incident and they weren’t surprised.
The NFL has the power to create and augment rules that will help develop and fine tune the league to how they see fit. But I don’t feel they can do much about the unwritten rules that exist in every team’s locker room. The NFL can suggest that every team monitor these situations, but shouldn’t that be something they are already doing? The actions of a few can ruin it for the many. It seems ignorance is bliss, only until someone finds out something they shouldn’t have, and then it’s time to be active and clean up the mess.
