If there are two things in life that Jameis Winston is good at, it's playing quarterback and keeping his PR reps busy. On Wednesday the Bucs' signal-caller once again displayed his proficiency in the latter, after giving a pep talk to some students at an elementary school in St. Petersburg.
According to The Tampa Bay Times, the 40-minute long speech was a well-intentioned one, given to third, fourth, and fifth graders of one of the area's most underprivileged schools. However, Winston got himself into trouble by closing the speech by calling on traditional gender stereotypes that might've been more at home, say, about 50 or 60 years ago.
"All my young boys, stand up. The ladies, sit down," Winston reportedly said. "But all my boys, stand up. We strong, right? We strong! We strong, right? All my boys, tell me one time: I can do anything I put my mind to. Now a lot of boys aren't supposed to be soft-spoken. You know what I'm saying? One day y'all are going to have a very deep voice like this (in deep voice). One day, you'll have a very, very deep voice.
"But the ladies, they're supposed to be silent, polite, gentle. My men, my men (are) supposed to be strong. I want y'all to tell me what the third rule of life is: I can do anything I put my mind to. Scream it!"
Probably not the best message to send.
Winston's controversial past, which includes accusations of rape by a fellow student while at Florida State, only added fuel to the controversy.
Unsurprisingly, Winston sent an apology to ESPN shortly after. "I was making an effort to interact with a young male in the audience who didn't seem to be paying attention, and I didn't want to single him out so I asked all the boys to stand up," Winston said. "During my talk, I used a poor word choice that may have overshadowed that positive message for some."
Video of the speech is available at the Tampa Bay Times website.