It would be hard to avoid wondering, almost by reflex, if his life had any chance of ending any other way.
Phillips came to fame as a powerful running back at the University of Nebraska, you might recall. He starred for the Cornhuskers in 1994 as they won a national championship (such as it was at the time), but only played two games in 1995 before being suspended from the team due to an assault against girlfriend Kate McEwen, a Nebraska basketball player at the time. Coach Tom Osborne went against his straight-arrow reputation by reinstating Phillips later that season on the premise that without football, Phillips would never be able to conquer his personal demons. More on that later.
After his junior year Phillips entered the NFL draft and was taken by the St. Louis Rams (as they were then), who gave up Jerome Bettis to make room to take him (think they might like that move back?). Phillips played only four years in the NFL, plus some time in Europe and Canada, punctuated by more run-ins with the law, before washing out of professional football.
At the time of his death Phillips was serving a thirty-one-year prison term for assault with a deadly weapon (a car) as well as domestic violence. He had recently been labeled a suspect in the murder of his cellmate and charged with murder in September. A number of other violent episodes were scattered across his lifetime.
It seems that Phillips -- Ray Rice without video -- should not pass from the scene unremarked, but it's almost impossible to know where to start.
1. As football coach (and also assistant athletic director), Osborne made the choice to reinstate Phillips only a short time after he had been suspended. As assistant athletic director, one wonders how Osborne considered his responsibility for the athlete who was dragged down a flight of stairs.
2. ESPN columnist Ivan Maisel reconsiders the Phillips incident at Nebraska and the fired-up reaction (his own included) to Osborne's reinstatement at the time. (Here's one example of that fired-up reaction.) I don't quite understand Maisel's current rationalization of now understanding why Osborne didn't "take the easy way out". Exactly what signs were there that football was of any aid in reining Phillips's demons? And how appropriate is it to sacrifice one athlete to redeem another? In retrospect it seems that Osborne did take the easy way out.
3. This points towards something that needs to be said about not just football, but any sport. Sports are not magic. Phillips's demons were not going to be controlled by playing football, or by any other sport. The impulse to "rescue" a troubled young athlete is understandable and even laudable, but the degree to which others are damaged by that rescue attempt is deeply problematic. Phillips didn't commit a victimless crime. Very few people seemed to remember that at the time, and it's not always clear that we're any better about that today when an athlete is implicated in a crime.
4. If you're interested in what it's like to be in one of the severely overcrowded prisons in the USA, or California in particular, Phillips wrote a series of letters to former coaches which provide some insight.
5. Phillips's brain will be donated for study at Boston University's Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Program. This is the program that has reported findings of CTE in 88 of 92 brains of former football players (most recently this unfortunate soul). You might be shocked to hear that this actually concerns me. If Phillips was suffering from CTE it does need to be established. And one of the acknowledged potential effects of CTE is the kind of violent mood swings that may have led to violence in some other former players who were later found to have CTE (Paul Oliver and Jovan Belcher come to mind, but they are hardly the only examples). It's going to be a challenge to make a definitive link between CTE and violent behavior, but it won't be for lack of potential case studies. Still, where is the dividing line between Lawrence Phillips, man who made a whole heap of horrible choices, and Lawrence Phillips, (potential) CTE victim (if that diagnosis should eventually be made)? Does this further complicate evaluating how Phillips's behavior was handled over the course of his career?
Regrettably, a sad and ugly story still has the potential to get sadder and uglier.
No comments:
Post a Comment