COLUMN: Jon Gruden being cancelled should serve as a wake up call to you
I’m not here to defend or take up for somebody that I don’t even know, but, what I am here to do is break down why I believe that the world today is going to continue to spiral into a world that we don’t want to live in.
Imagine climbing the ranks from the smallest of schools starting at the University of Dayton and climbing the ladder to become one of the most beloved and sought after football coaches at the professional level. All of the hard work, all of the hours, all of the sleepless nights, the numerous amount of people that you helped. Forget the wins. Forget the Super Bowl. Forget the all pros you’ve coached. Let’s just talk about the man himself, Jon Gruden, who accomplished so damn much in such a long journey to the very top.
I am only 26 years old, but I have a hard time believing that any individual on planet earth is the same person that they were 11 years ago. I’d like to think you’ve said a bad thing or two about somebody. Either in your head, out loud, or through a text message or email. You learned from it though, right? You learned to mature over the years. You learned to look back on the things you said and you realize in the moment, when you said them, that you didn’t actually mean them. Anger, sadness, a couple of beers or plain old “I’m gonna be a dickhead here” got the better of you. It’s called emotion. When emotions are high, decision making is incredibly low. We all experience this sooner or later. But guess what? We mature. We learn to handle emotions differently when we see that the old way wasn’t working. There’s no set date or age on when you finally grow out of childish behavior. It comes early for some, stays later for some. It’s just a personal thing. You grow out of it, though.
There’s no person on earth who can convince me that Jon Gruden is a racist or a homophobe.
There’s a lot to learn and unpack from this situation. Now most of us aren’t in the national spotlight making millions of dollars a year to coach a football team, but this does serve as an alarming message to all of us who hope to make an ascension in this life. It doesn’t matter what business you are in. If you are dealing with the public, if you are a lawyer, if you are a business owner, if you are a teacher, if you are a real estate agent, if you are a police officer, this all applies to you. We are living in a world now that is out to expose people for their past mistakes. They’re out to make an example out of them, they’re out to ruin their livelihoods and careers. Social media is 100% to blame for every bit of this. If you’ve ever said something out of line to someone, if you’ve ever said something controversial, you better be paying close attention. You better be deleting emails, texts, voicemails, all of it. You are an absolute target, to somebody. There is someone out there who did this to Jon Gruden deliberately. This was done on purpose. This was done out of spite to get back at him for something. Who? Why? I don’t know, but, I do know this: Time will tell.
As a fan of football, as a fan of sports in general, and as a lover of life, I can sit here and tell you this with 100% honesty. I do not care who you were 10 or 15 years ago. I know that people can grow and change in just matter of a year, let alone over a decade. When I look at and examine myself over just the last two years, I am a worldly different person. It’s not even close. I’ve made strides in my health, exercise, spirituality, social life, the list goes on. I’m a significantly better person today than I was two years ago. The same holds true for us all. Nobody stays the same for that period of time. Believe me, it’s just not humanly possible.
The real issue that we have today is that people are finding the sudden itch to pretend to care about things, that they don’t actually care about.
I don’t know how or when this will end, but I hope it’s soon. I hope we can rise up against cancel culture and end this absurd way of life. It’s the furthest thing from normal. It’s madness. Who you were, the things you said, no matter how long ago, shouldn’t dictate or jeopardize your ability to do what you worked your entire life to do. It’s not right.
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