I was always taught think before you speak. And the best way to avoid trouble is to not get into trouble in the first place. Apparently someone didn’t teach Cris Carter that lesson. Instead he now has to apologize for comments made by Hall of Famer Cris Carter at the 2014 Rookie Symposium.
Carter, who said at the symposium that young players should have a “fall guy” to take the blame if they’re ever in trouble with the law,
”You all are not going to all do the right stuff,” Carter is seen telling the audience in the video. ”So I got to teach you all how to get around all this stuff too. If you’re going to have a crew, one of them fools got to know he’s going to jail.”
How about teaching young men how not to get in trouble in the first place. With all the off the field arrest and trouble that has been dogging the NFL in recent years you would think the message would be different. Instead Carter’s message is get in trouble but make sure one of your buddies takes one for the team…Really? Seriously? Because of the fallout from this Carter obviously has reversed field …
”Seeing that video has made me realize how wrong I was,” Carter tweeted. ”I was brought there to educate young people and instead I gave them very bad advice. Every person should take responsibility for his own actions. I’m sorry and I truly regret what I said that day.”
“It’s really hard to go through my thought process,” Carter said. “I can’t make an excuse for what my mindset was. My heart was in the right place. I didn’t use words that I was very proud of. It’s not the kind of advice I would offer young people. I would never tell young people to break the law or avoid prosecution. It was bad advice. I really, really regret my words when I heard them come back to me. And more importantly it hurt young people and it hurt them in their approach to the National Football League. So I take it very, very seriously. I do regret that day. I hope moving forward that the NFL still has enough trust in me and has me connected to their young people.”
It’s too late to take back what was said, Carter’s words carry a lot of weight with all these rookies…Former player who has been through trouble in his career, a Hall of Fame player…you would think he would measure his words more carefully. Instead it goes back to those simple lessons we learn early in life. Think before you speak and once spoken it doesn’t come back.
One of the more amazing things about this whole thing is that it took a year for this to come out. Why did it take so long and why did it come out now? It will be interesting to see how this plays out further and why it happened now.
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