By: Chuck Miller
Football, Uncategorized

Adrian Peterson, the switch, and his (finally) deactivation

I’ve followed the recent stories involving the NFL and player actions within with great interest and concern.  I cringed when I saw the footage of Ray Rice dragging his cold-cocked fiancee out of an elevator; and I almost threw up when I saw the OTHER footage where he actually slugged her IN the elevator.

Then I watched as the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens danced around various suspensions, and finally there was the laughable two-game suspension of Rice – which only increased to an indefinite suspension after the second video was made public.

Now that being said, I’m no fan of any athlete or public figure who assaults another woman, whether it be his wife or his fiancee or some meet-up in a college bar.  And I’ve blogged about my disgust for those people who commit those crimes.  Chad Ochocinco/Johnson.  Travis Kvapil.  I’Mir Williams.  Even the quarterback for my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, Ben Roethlisberger.  And I would post the pictures of what Christy Mack looks like after her MMA boyfriend War Machine beat her into unrecognizability… but those pictures would be too graphic and disturbing for this blog.

But the Adiran Peterson story… that story is too close to home for me.

Background.

Adrian Peterson, the running back for the Minnesota Vikings, was charged with child abuse based on reports that he hit his 4-year-old son with a broken-off tree branch, also known as a “switch.”  The child received welts and scars on his legs and buttocks.

According to Forbes, who gathered information from various sources, Peterson “whooped,” in his own words, his child with the switch.  The CBS affiliate in Houston reported that Peterson later sent text messages to the mother of his child, with such language as:

  • describing wounds inflicted on the child’s thigh, his mother might be “mad at me about his leg. I got kinda good wit the tail end of the switch.”
  • That he “felt bad after the fact when I notice the switch was wrapping around hitting I [sic] thigh.”
  • “Got him in nuts once I noticed. But I felt so bad, n I’m all tearing that butt up when needed! I start putting them in timeout. N save the whooping for needed memories!”
  • And then, as if to distance himself from the actions and their consequences, he said, “Never do I go overboard! But all my kids will know, hey daddy has the biggie heart but don’t play no games when it comes to acting right.”

Ugh.

As a survivor of child abuse and child endangerment, I read these words and I want to puke.

And when I heard that the punishment for Adrian Peterson was a one-game paid suspension, only to be reinstated in time for the Vikings’ Week 3 matchup against the New Orleans Saints… I couldn’t believe it.

What was I seeing?  That you could leave bruises and welts and scars on a four-year-old child, and all it cost was a one-game suspension?  And you gotta get back on the field because what, someone has Adrian Peterson in their fantasy league team and he needs those stats so he can defeat whichever one of his buddies has the team name “Password is Taco”?

Well, I wasn’t the only one who was upset over these actions.

The NFL’s sponsors are also upset.  Within 24 hours of the Vikings’ decision to reinstate Adrian Peterson for the next game, the Radisson hotel chain, a major sponsor of the Vikings, have suspended their sponsorship of the team.  The local Nike apparel stores in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area have also chimed in, removing all Adrian Peterson gear from sale.

Finally comes this word from one of the NFL’s major sponsors, Anheuser-Busch, who have been monitoring not only the Adrian Peterson situation, but also the Chris Hardy and Ray Rice issues.

 

That’s right.  When the alcohol companies are saying that you’re acting irresponsibly…

This morning, the Vikings finally took action.  They placed Adrian Peterson on the Exempt/Commissioner’s permission list until further notice.  This deactivates him from practices, it keeps him off the field on game day, it allows Peterson to deal with these charges and let the due process take its course.  The Vikings ownership released a statement regarding their decision.

I still don’t understand.  And maybe I never will.  Playing in the National Football League isn’t a God-given right, it’s a privilege.  You earn that privilege by your skills and your character.  And you can lose that privilege if either your skills or your character are shown to deteriorate.

It shouldn’t have taken sponsor saber-rattling to get the Vikings to take Adrian Peterson off the roster.

Then again, Adrian Peterson shouldn’t have resorted to using a tree branch to discipline a 4-year-old.

And then again, maybe we should use this moment as a discussion about what it takes to discipline a child.  Spanking, timeout, removal of privileges, extra chores, a wooden spoon or a spatula on the buttocks, a weighted candle-holder thrown at the back of your head…

We need to learn from these moments.  We need to become better as a society and as a culture.

Just as victims of domestic abuse are watching the NFL’s move with Ray Rice…

So too are victims and survivors of child abuse, as they see how the NFL reacts to one of their top stars admitting to beating his son with a tree branch.