Jerramy Stevens, We Hardly Knew Ye

Jerramy Stevens, you should be ashamed of yourself.

No, not for your comments before Super Bowl XL and then your subsequent choking.

For your past. You are a despicable human being. You deserve nothing of what you have.

Oh, excuse my outburst right there. I need to explain myself. The reason for my outburst is a Seattle Times in-depth feature on the 2000 University of Washington football team entitled "Victory and Ruins" that exposes the team's run-ins with the law and the lack of discipline provided by coach Rick Neuhisel and athletic director Barbara Hedges. The team featured felons and players who had misdemeanors and players charged with sexual assault. Perfect for the stereotypical athlete getting off on crimes.

Which brings me to Jerramy Stevens. Stevens was one of four players given his own section in the feature. His was entitled "Convicted of assault and rape, star player received raft of second chances." The actions of Stevens that are chronicled in this disgust me. I don't need to describe them. You can read the article yourself. But what is even more appalling is the action (or lack thereof) taken by the state of Washington and the school itself.

Here's FanNation's own Big Ben68 with his reaction to the Stevens article:

Holy f*cking hell...Stevens has done a lot of s*it and gotten away with just about all of it...

I don't want to sound like an athlete-hater, because I'm not. I am an athlete and I participate in athletics at my school. But I really hate special treatment given to athletes. It's something that just really gets me. In my Honors Algebra II class last year, one of my teammates on track spent an entire quarter with a 70 before being moved down a class. The track coach was our teacher. There was another incident in the fall at my school where the school received pictures of various students, including three defensive starters on the football team, drinking on the morning of our school's first night game in its 43-year history. All athletes had to sign a pledge when the season started accepting responsibility and discipline if something like this happened. The common understanding was that we would be suspended from athletics for a year. The three football players missed two games. Members of the women's soccer team that implicated did not miss any time, according to some people. The extent of their punishment was supposedly writing an apology and apologizing in team meetings. However, our administration did not release any information, so the details still remain cloudy.

But what University of Washington did was horrible. Who knows how many people their football players hurt? Stevens was obviously out of control and the school barely did anything about it. Read the article. Read about what he did in high school. This guy is a disgrace. And the ignorance. To me, ignorance is the worst thing an athlete can have. Ignorance to rules, ignorance to authority, and ignorance to the team. Stevens had them all. He probably would not be drafted on the first day in the NFL Draft today because of his character issues. Stevens deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Pacman Jones as well. And Cedrick Wilson might have to join him.

It is a disgrace to the NFL that they have players like these associated with the league. One moment, you are reading about Brett Favre, but the next you are reading about Pacman Jones or Rae Carruth. Sadly, the NFL has members from both ends of the spectrum.

Now I don't have any personal connection to Stevens. I have Madden NFL 2002, in which Stevens is a backup tight end to Christian Fauria on the Seahawks, but I never really played with the Seahawks. Before Super Bowl XL, Stevens' 15 minutes of fame, I immediately disliked him. I was rooting for the Seahawks, but listening to this guy talk made me want to hurt him. I laughed at him after he dropped those three passes.

In the words of a Deadspin.com article, "The 2000 Washington Huskies were horrible people:"

We'll say this, and it'll be the last time we ever say it: We wish Joey Porter would have put his face through a wall.

Agreed?

Anyway, you owe it to yourself to read the Seattle Times feature.

Thanks for reading.