Good read on Marshall Henderson

http://deadspin.com/how-marshall-henderson-gets-away-with-being-marshall-he-458598247

Asks a fair question: Would a black kid still be playing college basketball if he had been convicted of trying to buy $800 worth of weed with counterfeit money, had his probation revoked when he tested positive for weed, alcohol AND cocaine, punched an opposing player, tweeted photos of himself drinking on the day off BETWEEN NCAA tournament games and with ladies he consistently labels "Hos" and seems compelled to flip everyone the bird in a public, televised setting.

BTW: Have yet to see any Mississippi newspaper report the double bird Henderson threw to fans after the LaSalle loss, despite the video being all over the Internet. Does everyone enable this little turd?

 

I pointed this out last week on Twitter and a lot of Ole Miss fans called me a racist for calling out the media for NOT calling out this kid more for his actions. I asked a simple question if Murphy Holloway, who is black did the same thing, would he be considered "refreshing" or an anti-hero by the media? Probably Not.

 

Also, didn't the Ole Miss coach kick two black kids off the team last year for smoking weed, and only that?

 

Even the Clarion-Ledger made no mention of him flipping off fans?

That's amazing...

 

C'mon guys, it just isn't like Andy Kennedy to go racial.

 

So when will Wright Thompson do the longform/mini-novel on him? You know it's coming, and probably merited.

 

It's a good, convincing piece. The thesis is certainly valid based on the evidence presented... Marshall Henderson has been allowed to misbehave because he isn't a black man.

 

I'm guessing if he was going to do one, he'd have done it by now...

 

Deadspin is either arguing for us to slam Henderson too or for us to give the Honey Badgers a similar pass to what Henderson has in its eyes received. I'd opt for slamming Henderson, too; athletes get so many breaks in life as is.

 

It was mentioned in their Tuesday follow-up:

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20130326/SPORTS030103/303260047?cid=dlvr.it

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But to the issue at hand, the little white guy who can shoot is always the most-reviled player on the other team and most-beloved player on his own team. I've noticed this phenomenon at every level of basketball, but it's especially prevalent in college.

Check out Grantland's "Most Hated College Basketball Player" bracket. A hugely disproportionate number of those guys were white.

 

"Mentioned" in their Tuesday follow? I think if it was almost any other paper covering a team in the NCAA Tournament, the incident would have been in the paper THE NEXT DAY, likely a column and certainly with comments from Ole Miss coach and athletic department officials. The video of him flipping people went viral. Sports editors in Mississippi can't pretend they didn't know about it. If they did, they were just as complicit as the Ole Miss officials enabling this punk and if they didn't, they were deaf and blind.
Answer this question: If Cody Zeller, Kenny Boynton, Brian Kelly, Austin Hollins or any other player had done this after a game, do you honestly think the local media in those areas would ignore it?

 

He did it going out the tunnel, so I'm not sure how many media members saw it live or even knew about it until the video surfaced. (And the video didn't surface until the next day).

With Ole Miss getting eliminated on Sunday night, most of the writers who cover Ole Miss were probably on a plane headed home by the time it became a story. As for why there hasn't been more follow-up coverage, I can't really say.

As for columnists, the Clarion-Ledger hasn't had one since Rick Cleveland took the buyout last summer and became executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.