Honey Badger gone at LSU

So what do all of us do about it, DD? If he's an addict, the worst thing we can do is enable that.

 

I will have to read that story. Have not heard much about his past. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe science has disproved this by now, but marijuana is not an addictive drug in the way that alcohol and other illegal drugs are, so he should be able to abstain. But I agree that his background should be considered, so maybe I spoke too soon and it is entirely possible that he is sabotaging his own chances and is totally overwhelmed and is using the drug to mask his pain. I apologize for my stupidity remark if that is the case. I also agree with LTL that the athletes get far more chances than the regular folks.

 

LTL, absolutely true. I wish I had an answer. I think many respects, becoming "The Honey Badger" was the worst thing that could have happened to Mathieu. I think all I'm asking for is some compassion and empathy. Imagine growing up in the Fifth Ward of New Orleans. Imagine if your mom said "Ok, I'm going to raise my first four kids, but I don't want this fifth one" and then retroactively tried to get back and be involved in your life when you became something. How do "fix" a kid like that? I wish I knew. I think football probably saved his life, but the fame that it offered also made it hard to cope in different ways.

I just think his whole story is a lot more complicated than "He's so stupid. Why can't he stop getting high?"

 

I appreciate you having me rethink this. I completely agree with your points. I will read this story, and hopefully I will understand better. Sounds like a sad way to grow up. No doubt.

 

This is a great take.

Unfortunately I think some people get so far gone that all the why's and what-for's can't help them. The good thing for him is he will get another chance. He will probably get enough chances until he either makes it or he is permanently barred by NFL rules. He will also get everything there is to be offered in the way of rehab.

 

I'mma get a li'l deep here, just 'cause:

Your version of gray is based on combining black and white, so it's as flawed as seeing the world in black and white. "Football saved his life" and "becoming 'The Honey Badger' was the worst thing that could have happened to Mathieu" are bold statements that sound good but only increase our problematic view of this situation. Those lines don't mean anything. We don't really know Tyrann Mathieu, even those of us who have spent some time with him for one reason or another. Guys like that don't open up. It's easy to see a guy like this through 2Pac lyrics, but that's only part of it. So much is wrapped up in personal perspective.

You say the fame got to him, but all indications are he was smoking weed before he dyed his hair. We've pulled him out of this mess because he's the name we latch onto, but why can't it be that he was having a good time, in his own way, with his friends? Why do we assume brokenness? Mathieu went through a lot, but many others have, too. Mathieu smokes a lot of marijuana, but many others do, too. I don't feel comfortable with the general assumption that he's spiraling out of control and self-medicating his depression. Do we know Tyrann Mathieu? Why is our reaction to this so drastically different from our reaction to Stephen Garica's many issues at South Carolina?

 

I agree with most of this too. Unless he just doesn't want the fame. And maybe that's what this is about. He wasn't ready for it. But at 5-9, 175 and all these issues, no NFL team will come near him door unless he makes a big comeback and proves himself for a while.

 

Sorry, DD, but this story and the linked interview aren't nearly as bleak as you make it out to be. Many, many kids have gone through similar things and not fucked up such a huge opportunity. Both stories indicate that he was taken in by his aunt/uncle and was loved like a son. The earlier interview also says that he enjoyed being the "Honey Badger" because making other people happy made him happy. I certainly see that he is sensitive and angry and his relationship with his mom is complicated, but I don't see it as being that horrible that he should be fucking up this badly. But I hope he can turn it around. I enjoyed watching him play, and he seems like a good guy.

The interview:
http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/feed/2011-10/lsualabama/story/tyrann-mathieu-honey-badger-adopted-channels-anger-onto-field-switch-to-safety

 

And I did also watch the video clip where Crossman makes that statement, but it just seemed that he likes the kid and hopes to see him turn his life around. My take from the story is that he was loved and relatively happy with his aunt and uncle.

 

I understand the point you're making, but I'm not just talking out my ass here. Mathieu has never been shy about opening up, actually. He has worn his anxieties and his worries on his sleeve for a long time. Reading his Twitter account was like reading his diary, and all the things I'm talking about here, he touched on. And I literally read every single thing he ever put on Twitter. Football was his salvation, his way to express an anger inside him that he couldn't explain. Here is a good example of the way he was happy to open up, with this quote that he gave to Matt Crossman.

“It’s two sides to me,” he said. “It’s that emotional one, who’s loving, who would give his all for his team, who would give all for his family. Then there’s that, I don’t want you to take it the wrong way, but there’s that confused guy, that angry guy, who doesn’t know where the anger comes from.”

Again, it certainly CAN be about having a good time, but from talking to some of his family and in talking to Miles, I can safely say it's not that simple. He has been confused and angry and driven and volatile and emotional and tormented for much of his life. Do I know Tyrann Mathieu? I'm not sure how to answer that. Do I know his biological father (convicted of murdering his mother's boyfriend with two shots to the head while holding Mathieu's sister in his arms while he pulled the trigger) wrote him letters frequently from prison, and that he struggled to know what to make of them? Yes. Do I know his biological mother (who gave him up, and could never say why) lashed out at his uncle and aunt (the people he grew to hesitantly call mom and dad) for trying to limit her contact with him once he got older? Yes. Do I know that after Katrina flooded his house with four feet of water and he had to live in Texas for a year and a half, and moved five times in three years, that he was grateful to find a core group of friends at St. Augustine were willing to embrace him when he was finally able to return, and that he struggled with the decision to stay loyal to them? Yes. Do I know from talking to people at LSU that when he first got suspended for marijuana, he was devastated because he felt like he thrown away his once chance to escape a lot of this? Yes.

I honestly don't know anything about Stephen Garcia's issues. But I know a little about Mathieu's. I know he was not ready, at age 19, to become one of the most famous people in college football. Who could have been? Certainly some of it could have been "Eh, he likes to party. No biggie." But not all of it.

 

BDC99, you should read the original piece Thayer Evans wrote. Paints a much more complicated picture. For some reason, all the links for it now take you to Fox Sports general CFB page, which is weird. Is Fox now pretending the story never happened because Evans works for SI?

Also, I thought Travis made some fair points here.

http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/tyrann-mathieu-can-only-make-money-for-other-people.php

 

No one is putting a gun to his head and telling him to fire up. He does this on his own. I'll go for it being a habit, but his life isn't much different than many others. He gets high because he wants to get high. He'll stop when he wants to stop.