Mitchell unrepentant over arm-bar
‘I don’t regret anything I do on the field. I play football hard’
As Khalif Mitchell held court in the Edmonton Eskimos end zone with local media on Friday, his words sounded familiar.
The six-foot-five, 315-pound defensive tackle for the B.C. Lions looms large enough to make you think he could reach up with his enormous arms and block out the sun if he wanted to. He has done his share of damage with those arms this season, which is why he was speaking with reporters at Commonwealth Stadium about 24 hours before his Lions face the Eskimos.
It was no surprise that Mitchell didn’t apologize for the arm-bar he slapped on Eskimos offensive lineman Simeon Rottier on July 20, the last time the teams met. Mitchell violently hyper-extended Rottier’s elbow, costing him three games and a four-week recovery period.
Mitchell has maintained from the moment the incident happened that he had nothing to apologize for. The Canadian Football League saw it differently and suspended him for two games.
“Should I (regret it)? Is it a remorseful thing?” the 27-yearold asked, turning the tables on a reporter.
“We play football. A lot of guys come out here and when you leave this field you’ve got to thank God that you leave it. I don’t regret anything I do on the field. I play football hard, I play football square; besides Simeon Rottier, what happened to his arm, I’ve never had a situation where anyone was significantly injured.”
A communications major at East Carolina University, Mitchell confidently worked the scrum with reporters. Unapologetic for the Rottier incident, Mitchell seemed to have no problems wearing the black hat that he feels the media has positioned onto him during the last two months.
‘You want a bad guy?’ his answers seemed to imply. Well, then, say hello to the bad guy.
As Mitchell’s scrum progressed, it evoked images of Tony Montana, the protagonist in the 1983 film Scarface. Al Pacino gave his infamous bad guy monologue in the film, which became a classic among mob movie fiends.
“You need people like me,” Pacino asserted. “You need people like me so you can point your … fingers and say, ‘That’s the bad guy.’ ”
The villain is an integral role in sports, but it’s one that has been watered down by public relations-conscious leagues and teams. They like to play it safe with the nice guy, who says the right thing.
For better or worse, Mitchell isn’t going to say or do the right things. His game is violent. It crosses the line. It’s physical. Ugly. And he’s owned up to that every day leading up to his first meeting with Rottier since injuring him.
His stubbornness is almost an admirable thing to watch, until the visual of Rottier’s arm bending back opposite of the way it was designed to bend, snaps you back to reality, back to why Mitchell is standing in the scrum. You wonder if the sun is safe above his head.
Mitchell would say that it is and that the black hat only goes on 18 nights a year, plus the playoffs.
“The only thing about it is I prayed for the guy when he was on the field,” he said of Rottier. “So many people try to make me out to be a monster, but people who know me know that I’m only a monster on the football field.
“I’m not a monster in person. I’m not a monster whenever I’m just normally me. I like being subtle and serene and just relaxed. Whenever this monster image comes up of me, I’m like, ‘These people are crazy.’ ”
They’re not crazy, Wally Buono asserts. The Lions general manager says that people don’t understand that an athlete’s game face is a mask.
“Khalif is almost like two personalities,” Buono said as he watched his team go through a light practice at Commonwealth. “Honestly … the offfield guy, he’s a very loving, very good guy and very artistic in a lot of ways.
“I call him a little bit of a renaissance guy. He’s very much into black culture, black history. He’s a classical piano player who taught himself by hearing. You speak to him and he’s always very bubbly, very happy, almost a gregarious kind of guy.
But on the football field,” the once-linebacker said, “we ultimately turn into someone else.”
For the record, Buono would have liked to have seen Mitchell apologize for injuring Rottier. He can’t put the words in Mitchell’s mouth, though.
“I think there’s reason to have compassion. I think the fact that somebody could have had their livelihood taken away, there’s reason for remorse,” he said.
“If your intent was never to hurt anybody, I guess the individual says to himself, ‘Why should I apologize?’ I guess as an individual, and I can’t speak for him, he obviously felt a certain way and he’s been consistent.”
Mitchell is consistently puzzling. In the off-season, he had an offer from the NFL’s Miami Dolphins in the neighbourhood of $95,000. He turned it down and re-signed with the Lions, saying on Friday that the CFL is “a more genuine brand” of football.
“The road was there, but I say this is what’s different about him,” Buono said. “I think he felt appreciated in B.C., he felt wanted in B.C. and when it was all said and done he came back home. I mean, guys who have his physical size and athleticism, usually don’t play here.
“This is why when he’s on top of his game he’s a very powerful man to deal with.”
When you’re not a disruptive teammate and you’re exceedingly good at what you do — he was a CFL West Division AllStar and a CFL All-Star with the Grey Cup-winning Lions in 2011 — you get to march to the beat of your own drum, even if it’s out somewhere past left field.
“It’s all right. It’s nothing I look at as bad, it’s nothing that I shy away from,” he said of the attention that has landed on him. “It’s something that comes with the territory. Whether it’s good or bad, it’s me in the spotlight and I’ve got to focus on my team.”
He’s comfortable in his own skin and accountable only to himself. On some level — drawing the line before Rottier’s injury — we need people like him.
“Me? I always tell the truth, even when I lie,” Pacino said as he wound down. “So say good night to the bad guy. Come on. The last time you’re going to see a bad guy like this in here, let me tell you.”