The very troubled LIFE OF BRYANT
Ill-timed walk-off just the latest scandal involving Cowboy Dez
WITH ONE minute and 21 seconds left to play in last Sunday’s clash with the Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys’ wide receiver Dez Bryant walked off the field and down the tunnel. That the Packers had the ball and were going to run down the clock as they clung to a one-point lead didn’t matter.
By leaving the sideline while play was still going on, Bryant had committed one of the great no-nos in professional sport. Immediately, the American media were obsessing over his actions, most regarding it as one more example of the supreme selfishness of the modern athlete.
As the best catcher of the ball on the team, Bryant wears No88 - just like Michael Irvin, the finest player the Cowboys have ever had in that position, wore back in the 1990s. In the aftermath of the walk-off, ESPN pundit Michael Wilbon said that Irvin should sue the club for denigrating his number by allowing this character to wear it. There was plenty more harrumphing where that came from.
Part of the problem was that this incident was just the latest involving Bryant appearing to disregard the conduct that is expected of every player. When your team is about to lose, the least you can do is stand with them and take it.
‘I was wrong, but I wasn’t looking at it in that kind of way,’ said Bryant as he sought to explain his actions and quell the criticism. ‘It didn’t have anything to do with my teammates. I just couldn’t watch Green Bay kneel it down after a loss like that.
‘I cried when I got into the locker room, and I didn’t want to show that obviously on the sideline. I’m a team guy. I extremely, extremely apologise for leaving, but my teammates and coaches understand. I’m a very emotional player, and we didn’t finish.’
As apologies go, it wasn’t bad, except for one problem – everybody has heard it all before. Every time he steps out of line, Bryant claims it’s caused by his overwhelming passion for the sport. Against the Detroit Lions earlier this season, he used that excuse when television cameras caught him losing it on the sideline, frantically roaring and shouting at his quarterback Tony Romo and some of the coaching staff.
Later that day he made a miracle grab for a touchdown that perhaps only a handful of others in the sport could possibly have pulled off. Talent like that explains why the Cowboys always seem willing to cut him slack.
THERE is also the matter of his background. Even in a sport where so many of the players emerge from poverty and the mean streets, Bryant had a peculiarly hardscrabble upbringing. His mother was 15- years-old when he was born. By the time she was 19 she had two other kids and was selling rock cocaine in order to feed the family. Eventually, the drug-dealing led to her spending 18 months in jail and, consequently, Bryant spent much of his childhood moving from house to house. His high school coach reckoned he had six different addresses during his time there and he was living with his girlfriend before he even graduated.
To emerge from those sort of unpromising circumstances (he was classified as learning disabled in elementary school) and somehow navigate the treacherous waters from high school to college football and the pros is quite the achievement.
He nearly came a cropper more than once (there were unproven allegations he may have received improper benefits from former Dallas Cowboy Deion Sanders while a student at Oklahoma State) and even the NFL draft presented him with challenges that few, if any, of his peers are ever likely to face. It is common before the draft for the clubs to give IQ tests and to interview players whom they hope to select.
THIS IS where they try to get a sense of the individual’s personality and character. When Bryant sat down with Jeff Ireland, then the general manager of the Miami Dolphins, he was asked straight-out whether his mother was a hooker. ‘No, my mom is not a prostitute,’ said Bryant when the story broke. ‘I got mad – really mad – but I didn’t show it. I got a lot of questions like that: Does she still do drugs? I sat and answered all of them.’
Ireland was forced to apologise for the question but it did illustrate the obstacles Bryant has had to overcome to get to where he is today. But here’s the thing. Since the Cowboys drafted him, he has lived up to the hype. Even last Sunday,
As apologies go Bryant’s wasn’t bad, but the problem is that everyone has heard it all before
the 24-year-old made an improbable catch for a touchdown, somehow holding onto the ball in mid-air and getting his feet in the end zone while being attacked by two Packers. This is the type of play that demonstrates Bryant’s incredible athletic ability on the field. Life off the field, however, has been no picnic.
In July, 2012, his mother Angela, now a lesbian, called the police alleging that he assaulted her and bruised her arms. Although the charge of domestic violence was later dismissed, he was sentenced to anger counselling and bound over to good behaviour for a year. This was followed by a spat with a member of rapper Lil Wayne’s posse at a Miami Beach nightclub. The type of pushing and shoving encounter all too common in the wee small hours in these places, it made headlines because of the identity of those involved.
Bryant’s immaturity and character defects are not helped by the fact the Cowboys are a dysfunctional outfit whose larger than life owner Jerry Jones has too much influence on the coaching and the locker room. Indeed, many feel that the worst part about Bryant’s latest stunt is that it has distracted attention away from the real problem facing his team. The owner, it seems, can’t get out of his own way and let the players play and the coaches coach.