Well, there you go. The NFL has concluded
its investigation and, more or less, confirmed that former Carolina
Panthers owner Jerry Richardson did all or most of the things that former
employees bound by non-disclosure agreements from not accusing him in public
claim he did. I'm not wholly shocked that this was the outcome, although as
someone who's had the team logo on my arm for a quarter century I am
disappointed. I did find it interesting the editorial slant that some media
outlets took on the topic as opposed to others. When you want an indicator on a
contentious topic in American society, look at the headlines out of the New
York Times and Washington Post, arguably the two most influential newspapers
left in the country. This is how the
Post titled its piece on Jerry Richardson:
'NFL fines former
Panthers owner Jerry Richardson $2.75 million over workplace misconduct'
And, this was the editorial slant of the New
York Times’ op-ed
on the same event:
'A Toothless
Investigation Slaps Jerry Richardson on the Wrist'
See the difference?
Richardson is admittedly a very wealthy man and
was so even before he sold the team. But the League did fine him a financial
penalty that was about triple what they've ever fined anybody associated with
their product at any time. And, he had to sell the team, taking a bullet for
all of his fellow owners, who obviously didn’t want to be tainted with the
scandal of one of their own tarred with the brush of serial abuser.
This whole incident reminds me of a Thanksgiving
in Austin, Texas in the previous decade, when I sat down at a bar next to the now-deceased
local proprietor to watch some football and enjoy the holiday spirit. The bar
owner was in his cups and had all kinds of interesting stories to tell about
his troubles with various governmental law enforcement agencies. And he had
some Dallas Cowboys stories as well, on account of the fact that his establishment
was right up the street from where the team used to hold its training camp for
a few years in the 1990s. To hear this man describe it, Cowboys owner Jerry
Jones and then-star receiver Michael Irvin were every bit as bad as they were
made out to be in the ‘White House’ glory days of back-to-back Super Bowl
victories. There were stories about gentlemen’s clubs and open propositioning
of women by players in public spaces. I walked out of that conversation speculating
that what I’d heard was probably just the tip of the iceberg, that Irvin (who in
the ‘90s was busted
in a scandal involving prostitutes) wasn’t an outlier.
So, maybe Jerry Richardson wasn’t an outlier, either.
Some will certainly see it that way.
I think in
Richardson’s case the NFL feared for its reputation, and he was persuaded
behind closed doors to go. We live in a time where technology has changed the balance
of public discourse, and things like #MeToo can scare the most entrenched halls
of privilege. 30 years ago, Jerry Richardson could’ve swept all of this aside
with a few discreet financial settlements behind closed doors; today, there
appears to be a segment of the population that refuses to accept anything other
than the maximum penalty for sexual misconduct regardless of what actually
happened – I’m sure if it was up to the Times
op-ed writer, Mr. Richardson would right now be trading in his expensive
grey suits for something orange.
Now
that David Tepper is the Panthers’ owner, I do think the statue of Jerry Richardson
should be taken down. Not necessarily for the reasons that Scott Fowler of the Charlotte Observer would seem to
think it should go. I find it funny that Fowler, whose columns I’ve read for
more than two decades, is so heavily on the bandwagon to tar and feather
Richardson on a donkey out of town. Apparently, the reporter never heard of nor
covered any of these serious allegations the whole time he’s been working the
Panthers beat. Perhaps the team just did that good of a job hiding the boss’s
dirty laundry, I don’t know.
Regardless, what
is known is Jerry Richardson unquestionably resigned his ownership under a cloud
of scandal. Richardson will be remembered as the guy who brought football to
the Carolinas, and personally as a Panthers fan with no ties to the area I will
always feel that he was a pretty good owner save for one obvious, damning
discrepancy.
A pretty good owner, but maybe kind of a creep.
Not a guy who deserves to be preserved in bronze.
