"A cruel or vicious ruffian, robber, or murderer."
"A young street ruffian, especially one belonging to a gang."
That first sentence that you read was the dictionary.com definition for the word thug. The second sentence is the dictionary.com definition for the word hoodlum. Both of these words have been used to describe the man of the hour, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman. By now, unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard the interview that sent shock-waves across the Twittersphere and social media mediums everywhere. If you haven't, go ahead and click here to catch up to the rest of the world.
Now that we have covered the bases of the true definitions of those two words, let's take a few sentences to outline a few things:
- Graduates high school with a 4.2 GPA and ranked second in his class
- SAT score of 1400
- Graduates from Stanford with a 3.7 GPA and a Communication degree
- Frequent contributor of time and money to the Compton, CA school district
Those four points describe Richard Sherman. As you can see, Mr. Sherman doesn't exactly fit the definition of a thug or a hoodlum. Sherman has never had run-ins with the law or been a suspect in any crime. For all purposes, he's been a model citizen in everyday society. If the talking heads really want to use the words thug or hoodlum to describe a NFL player at least use it correctly (eh Aaron Hernandez?).
Also, during the infamous interview, Sherman made a few proclamations. But here's the thing that most people are missing....HE WAS RIGHT on just about every point. Hands down, Richard Sherman is the best cornerback in the league. In case you want to waste your time arguing that, just take the time to look. Since Sherman entered the league in 2011 he has more interceptions than any other player. Since 2011 he also has more passes defended than any other player. Oh, and just for good measure quarterbacks only have a 39.4 QB rating (the highest a QB can have is 158.3) when throwing passes at the receivers he's covering. In case you didn't guess, yes that is also the best mark in the league. Now while Tha Weatha Report tells you that numbers can lie, the facts don't. The fact that Richard Sherman is indeed the best in the league is easy to see. The one point of Sherman's interview that can be debated is whether or not Michael Crabtree is indeed a mediocre receiver. Crabtree's numbers have improved every season he's been in the league before this past season as he missed most of it with injury. Is Crabtree an average receiver? That's open to interpretation, but that really isn't the main point.
The point is that Richard Sherman is getting raked over the coals by some all because he essentially spoke the truth. Now granted, maybe he could have chosen his words in a much wiser fashion but what did you expect? Football is an extremely intense and emotional game. After playing 60 minutes in the biggest game of his life and just having made the play of the season to send his team to a Super Bowl we expect an already emotionally charged man to find a way to contain his emotions? Tha WeathaMan isn't buying that and neither should you. We've all said things that we wanted to say, but we chose the wrong words. The only difference is that FOX cameras wasn't in our faces when we said it. Get off your high horse people, Richard Sherman is just the same as any of us after an emotional experience. We say or do things that we normally wouldn't do. Just the way things go.
At the end of the day, Richard Sherman and his fellow teammates are gearing up for the Super Bowl and 30 other teams are at home. If you don't like what Sherman has to say, you might want to root for a team that can actually beat them. Until then, to the victors go the spoils as they say. You may not like what Sherman said or how he said it, but the FACTS are that he told the truth. And we all know, the truth never lies.
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