The Worst People in Sports This Summer

The stink of the summer of 2014 is still fresh on the upper lips of all Americans. If we, for one second, ignore all the horrible things that happened outside of sports (ISIS, Ferguson, Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, etc), then this summer still sucked. The sports world saw blatant racism, domestic violence, child abuse, cover-ups, inflammatory and irresponsible media commentary, and severe abuses of power from those who choose to hold onto it so dearly.

This summer, the curtain was peeled back and the hog was flipped over. What we saw from our beloved athletes and sports executives was ugly. It’s not surprising to learn that those who dominate sports headlines—our stars—have varying tastes in morality and questionable motives (the world can’t be and won’t be a progressive utopia held together by the watchmen of the liberal media), but to hear and read about the stunts pulled by Ray Rice, Roger Goodell, Adrian Peterson, Danny Ferry, and Sepp Blatter was difficult.

Sports are supposed to be a vacation from the terrible realities of actual human existence. It’s a medium of entertainment that’s a fantasy construct played out by real life actors. But when the 6 p.m. SportsCenter broadcast becomes just as fucking depressing as the 11 p.m. news, sports loses its charm. We shouldn’t feel slimy or disappointed in myself for watching an NFL game. We shouldn’t have to wonder whether or not we're giving our money to a racist when we buy an NBA ticket. We shouldn’t have to worry about our favorite athletes biting each other. That shit isn’t fun, but what’s behind the curtain never is. See which sports characters played The Wizard over these past four months in The Worst People in Sports This Summer.

Sepp Blatter

Sport: Soccer

Of all of the old, rich, out-of-touch guys who run sports, Sepp Blatter is the worst. The 78-year-old continued his banner campaign of blatant corruption and ignorance this summer. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil was a fantastic international sporting event, but the mitigating socioeconomic factors in Brazil made the extreme cost of hosting the tournament a difficult one for its people to absorb. Blatter and FIFA work exclusively in surreptitious ways (although they’re often caught), which leads to things like a $300 million stadium in the Amazon jungle being built, or Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid dependent upon modern day slavery and a $45 billion city that has yet to be built.

This isn’t a pattern of grave incompetence either—it’s done willfully without much regard for potential consequences. Blatter is a fat old raisin of a man, but with so much poison running throughout that organization, he’s only the tip of the problem.

Luis Suarez

Sport: Soccer

Despite what some crazy hacks may write about Luis Suarez and his Bite, there’s no defense for what he did. Nobody can stand up and earnestly say, “Suarez had every right to go out and sink his teeth into other humans.” Biting Giorgio Chiellini was a bad look. It was a selfish act that made every Suarez supporter feel like they had been hard done by his improved disciplinary record. A year of clean behavior (so much for all the talk of being a “changed” man) and stellar play prior to the tournament was all undone by one bite. He may have mental scars that lead to irratic behavior, but his repeated biting offenses leave little on the table to grasp. Suarez revealed himself as a PR fraud at that World Cup, and if there’s one thing that fans can’t stand, it’s being mislead by their supposed heroes. Suarez sucks for that.

Roy Hodgson

Sport: Soccer

Roy Hodgson and Sepp Blatter would make great lunch buddies for each other. Hodgson is the King of Arcane soccer tactics. The game has passed him by so drastically that you almost feel sorry for him. Like when grandpa gets so old he starts confusing salt and sugar but you don’t say shit while eating his salty-ass pancakes cause you respect the dude.

EXCEPT, Hodgson is a delusional old man who manages ENGLAND, so nobody goddamn cares about whether or not Hodgson wears Pampers regularly. He took a legitimately bright and talented England team and marginalized their abilities to lead England to their worst World Cup finish since 1958. He’s too stubborn to change and adapt to how the game works in 2014, and is on-record calling criticism of his methodology as “fucking bollocks.” Who knew that grandpa could be kind of an asshole?

Hope Solo

Sport: Soccer

Hope Solo was one of the highest profile domestic violence arrests that happened this summer that nobody seemed to care about, and then everyone seemed to care about again in the fallout of Ray Rice’s incident. On June 21st, she allegedly beat up her older sister and 17-year-old nephew. Her nephew claims that he was talking shit about her and she freaked out on him, calling him “fat” and a “pussy” before physically assaulting him and his mother.

If every grown-ass woman resorted to violence after a dumb teenager said dumb teenage things, then there’d be a worrying shortage of healthy young males in the United States. Solo—a victim of domestic violence herself—is an immature thug for this one.

Ray Rice

Sport: Football

Where to begin with Ray Rice? He never apologized for viciously striking his now-wife, but Janay Palmer Rice has apologized for “her role” in the incident. He lied to his teammates over the details of it all, choosing to downplay what he did to save face. And now he’s trying to appeal his indefinite NFL suspension because he claims it was handed down on the basis of an edited video.

Please Ray Rice—please explain to us how an extended cut of that infamous elevator tape can possibly redeem your actions enough to warrant reinstatement. The world doesn’t need to see what may or may not have happened in the lead up to the punch, and we definitely don’t need to know where else you may or may not have decided to drag her unconscious body. There’s no plausible justification out there for this monster.

Stephen A. Smith

Sport: Football

Stephen A. Smith has been a television train wreck this summer. A commentator noted for his extensive vocabulary and preacher-like demeanor, there was nothing particularly agreeable with his explanation on the “Elements of Provocation”.

Smith followed that rant with the most confusing and unintelligible Twitter defense imaginable. ESPN suspended him for a week after they made him apologize on-air.

This was the SECOND time he’s pointed to provocation as a reason for a man to hit a woman, which is exactly one reason too many. Throw in the fact that he doesn’t think that Roger Goodell should lose his job, and you have a man whose word can’t possibly be taken seriously. Then again, Smith’s main gig now is as one-half of the great “embrace debate” programming that First Take delivers, so you should really never bother with whatever asinine water cooler talk he may spew.

Greg Oden

Sport: Basketball

Greg Oden is 7’1” and 275 lbs. He punched his ex-girlfriend—who, in all likelihood, isn’t 7’1” and 275 lbs—in the face. When police arrived on the scene, they found her swollen, bloodied, and cut. Oden reportedly said, “I was wrong, and I know what has to happen” when police took him in to custody. Given the astonishing lack of sense and remorse from other domestic abusers in sport this summer, Oden’s words were—it feels wrong to say this—kind of refreshing. They in no way erase what he did, but to hear some words of regret and acceptance makes everyone feel less shitty about shitty stories like this and shitty people like Oden.

Roger Goodell

Sport: Football

I’m going to try doing this at my next job: I’ll misjudge the severity of an ugly situation, make a bad decision, stand by that bad decision because I’m not a flip-flopper, change that bad decision once everyone gets seriously pissed at me, and then lie about how I came to make that initial awful decision after those seriously pissed people ask why I fucked up so hard. Only then will I admit that I’m an incompetent blowhard, but because I admitted such, I vehemently stand by my office.

That’s how an actual NFL commissioner handled suspending a player who knocked out his wife.

Roger Goodell sucks.

Steve Bisciotti

Sport: Football

This man should not own an NFL team. As the owner of the Ravens, Bisciotti put his football team ahead of morality. He refused to cut Ray Rice after learning about the Atlantic City attack (he also failed to make an effort to acquire a copy of the elevator tape, because who cares, right?), and instead actively lobbied law enforcement officials and the NFL for leniency.

Under his ownership, the Ravens held on to and helped Rice all they could, rolled out Janay Palmer Rice to apologize for getting beaten, let his digital media team sell Rice as a martyr against an oppressive NFL regime, and actively tried to keep the elevator tape from becoming public.

Steve Bisciotti is a slimy corrupter of justice who will do and say anything to win football games, even if it means metaphorically spitting on every victim of domestic abuse out there.

Bruce Levenson

Sport: Basketball

The year 2014 hasn’t been kind to racist NBA owners. Donald Sterling got the boot after his racist phone conversation was leaked. Hawks owner Bruce Levenson followed in Sterling’s footsteps (sort of), although his missteps were willingly revealed. Levenson was forthright with the contents of a racist email he sent to Hawks staffers about selling out the arena, and because he came forward with the release, he was also able to control the aftermath.

There’s been a decent amount of debate over whether Levenson’s email was actually racist or offensive, but let’s shoot straight here: Levenson (aside from thinking that the kiss-cam was “too black") wanted to drive away black fans from Philips Arena in order to bring back racist white fans who would pay for more expensive tickets.

Come. On.

Danny Ferry

Sport: Basketball

The Atlanta Hawks’ public relations catastrophe doesn’t stop with Bruce Levenson. General manager Danny Ferry, during a conference call about Luol Deng, stated that Deng “has a little African in him. Not in a bad way, but he’s like a guy who would have a nice store out front but sell you counterfeit stuff out the back.”

Ferry was paraphrasing that statement from a scouting report on Deng from the Cavs. While the words weren’t his, he still said them in a professional environment to his bosses. Of all scouting reports, why did Ferry choose that one to use in a discussion of Deng? Or, even more specifically, that sentence? It's idiotic and insensitive behavior from Ferry.

Josina Anderson

Sport: Football

Thanks to Josina Anderson, we all know about how and when Michael Sam likes to shower. While covering Sam’s training camp with the Rams, Anderson pursued questionable comments from one Rams player on how Sam appeared to be showering separately from teammates. Anderson turned Sam’s sexuality into a question of how Sam, a professional football player, was “fitting in” with a training camp full of other professional football players.

Anderson then followed up her segment with a defense of her reporting skills, which nobody asked for or wanted. She may be an Emmy-winning reporter, but she seriously screwed up here, and her defiance was far from needed.

Shelly Sterling

Sport: Basketball

Lest we forget, Shelly Sterling is just as shitty as Donald. She once posed as a health inspector to illegally enter the apartments of her tenants, because she waned to evict certain ethnic groups from her buildings. She thinks Latinos are “filthy”. She’s still fucking married to Donald and holds his name.

And this summer, she took advantage of her husband’s racism. Shelly negotiated the sale of the Clippers to Steve Ballmer, and within the deal, she legally gained the title of “Clippers Number One Fan” and “owner emeritus,” in addition to 10 tickets and two court side seats to every game.

I hope Clippers fans unleash a deafening tone of boos if she ever musters up the balls to show up at a game. Just because she got away with a sweet deal, Mrs. Sterling shouldn’t get away in the court of public opinion. Drive her out, Clippers fans.

Adrian Peterson

Sport: Football

Adrian Peterson’s child abuse case solidified a liberal public consensus: In any circumstance, it’s wrong for men to engage in violence acts against women and children. Provocation is bogus. Beating your kids is bogus. These are universal moral foundations that, by in large, bridge progressive and conservative cultural gaps.

What’s intriguing to note here—and it’s something that Charles Barkley may have indirectly alluded to when he explained how corporal punishment goes down in the south—is that domestic violence spans across all levels of status and class. Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson weren’t hard criminals, they’re not street thugs, and they don’t have histories of mental ailments. They were, in the public’s knowledge, two upstanding young professionals.

Yet even upstanding citizens can become monsters in private. Men aggressing against women and children clearly isn’t a new or rising phenomena, but the chances of it being revealed are certainly rising. There’s no situation where one’s privacy can’t be revealed—information is too easily shared, hacked, and traded today. Issues of family and domestic violence—once matters that could be kept on the low, matters that were once intensely private—just aren’t anymore. Peterson got busted via leaked text messages.

Hopefully, these cases will serve as fair warning to athletes and fans going forward: Don’t suck, because you will get caught.