Boorish Behavior Berated

Today we’ll deal with Peyton Manning’s moon over Knoxville, Allen Iverson’s gun under the seat, Abraham Lincoln’s parable on mercy, George Brett’s hemorrhoids, Mike Tyson’s teeth, Michael Westbrook’s 23 seconds of shame and Winston Churchill’s most reasonable excuse for boorish behavior.

It was Churchill’s habit to listen to conversation only until he heard enough to dispute the argument being made. One night at the dinner table, as his son Randolph spoke, Churchill interrupted to make his own point. When Randolph finally found the courage necessary to take back the conversation, the elder Churchill cried out, “Don’t interrupt me when I’m interrupting.”

“You interrupted first,” the son said.

“But I,” the prime minister said, “am a great man.”

Ah, for the good old days of great men. Today we have only fools. They do a fool’s thing and make a fool’s excuses. Then they announce they will no longer address their foolishness. They say, “That’s behind me now.”

That’s how they tell the media to quit harping on it. In the doing, they tell the public that pays their salaries none of it matters any longer. That’s behind me now. Meaning the crime, the scandal, the embarrassment no longer is relevant.

The most egregious of the fools even spreads the blame, thinking here of Iverson, the NBA’s Rookie of the Year. Arrested as a passenger in a speeding car and charged with possession of marijuana and carrying a concealed weapon, Iverson pleaded guilty to having the gun hidden under the passenger seat. The marijuana charge was dropped in return for the guilty plea by the Philadelphia 76ers’ troubled point guard.

Already having spent time in jail once because of a high school brawl, Iverson now has been sentenced to three years’ probation, monthly drug testing for two years and 100 hours of community service. Oh, and he can’t own a gun.

All this after his plaintive whinings the week of his arrest. He then blamed the media for painting a picture that didn’t represent his true character. He said the truth will come out. Right about that. Few men ever plead guilty to charges that are lies.

So his admission brands him a criminal. Not that you’d know it by the statement released after his plea. That statement, to quote the public prints, was released “through his agent,” one David Falk, who is famous for his work with Michael Jordan. “I would like to . . . apologize to my family, my team and my fans for any embarrassment that this incident may have caused them,” were words printed in Iverson’s statement, which concluded, “I look at this situation as a learning experience and I hope to grow from it.”

What a world. Arrested with dope and a gun, Iverson calls it a learning experience. It’s a stone dumb crime. And as long as we’re shouting in capital letters, why should his family, teammates and fans be embarrassed? They didn’t get arrested, he did.

Though it’s seldom we have a chance to give Mike Tyson credit for character, he outclassed Iverson when it came to distributing a statement he likely had nothing to do with writing. Iverson never appeared in public; Tyson faced the media to read an apology that mentioned Don King, the Nevada boxing commission and the world’s boxing fans. Only much later did he get around to saying sorry about the ear to Evander Holyfield.

Think about this. Tyson paid a $3 million fine for biting both of Holyfield’s ears in a public display of carnivorous instinct.

Meanwhile, what did Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning pay for a private display of boyish instincts? His school paid $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a woman trainer claiming sexual harassment by the Heisman Trophy candidate. Manning admitted the “mooning” incident, but said he’d aimed it at a buddy passing through the locker room and had no idea the woman trainer could see.

But Tennessee’s $300,000 settlement would suggest another version of that story is at least as plausible. Even at that, the most painful barb may have been planted by the Birmingham News, which reported that Manning “has a tattoo on his backside of Steve Spurrier, who’s been a pain there for four years.” SEC humor there, ouch.

It cost Washington Redskins wide receiver Michael Westbrook $50,000 to punch up teammate Stephen Davis the last week of training camp. Without apparent provocation, Westbrook, in full uniform, sucker-punched the T-shirted Davis and pummeled him on the ground--for which the Redskins levied the largest player fine in club history. Westbrook’s public apology required 23 seconds and 72 words, including the all-important, “I think it’s important to move on . . . “

As if nothing happened. As if a player’s demonstration of uncontrolled violence is no hint it will happen again. That’s behind me now. We should forget it now that it has happened, which certainly would be a kindness to Mr. Westbrook during what he called his “great embarrassment.”

Certainly no NFL fan, but astute in matters of human nature, Abraham Lincoln once spoke words applicable to Westbrook: “He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then, when sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”

Some men stand up and take the blame. We should applaud the usually unapplaudable Albert Belle. If he’d had a normal season, Belle said, the White Sox would have been big winners. But in an off-year, he didn’t earn the $11 million the Sox gave him. Good for Albert. He joins George Brett in the Stand-Up Guy’s Hall of Fame, for it was Brett, suffering from hemorrhoidal pain, who returned to the Royals’ lineup in the 1980 World Series and, with a smile, announced, “All my trouble is behind me.”