The Side Line
A week later, my normally-quiet college town is still buzzing after “The Roethlisberger Incident,” and with good reason. It’s not every day a star athlete shows up to party with us college kids in Milledgeville, and I’d have to say even less often that athlete leaves with sexual assault accusations from a GCSU sophomore.
Here’s how I see it.
Ben Roethlisberger may or may not be a rapist, but if nothing else, he is one of the dumbest superstar athletes in history. He seems to have acquired no sense of what it means to be a quarterback in the NFL, and instead, treats his position as an entitlement to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whoever he wants. I have never met the man, and based on what I know of him, I never want to. I can count on one hand the athletes I would say the same thing about.
Whatever happened in a Capital City bathroom is largely irrelevant to me at this point. The point is, what the hell is Ben Roethlisberger doing with a GCSU sophomore in the Capital City bathroom in the first place? I don’t care how drunk he was. I don’t care if she was leading him on, if she was starstruck, if she wanted to impress a celebrity, whatever. I don’t care how attractive the girl is, if my name was Ben Roethlisberger I’d be dating supermodels and actresses, not skimming through a Middle Georgia dance club for a hookup.
The onus is on Roethlisberger to say to himself, “maybe this is a bad idea, this could get out of hand,” but instead, Big Ben decided to see just what his status could get him. And if it wasn’t that easy, maybe he decided to take it anyway.
If nothing else, maybe he’ll learn a lesson from this. But probably not. He’ll probably slither out of this one too, with his high-priced lawyer and the reputation of the NFL in consideration.
Maybe someday soon, in another college town like Athens or Statesboro, you can run into Big Ben. If you’re a guy, maybe you’ll get his autograph (if you still want it at this point). If you’re a girl, maybe you’ll get more than you bargained for.
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Posted by Preston Sellers
on Mar 12 2010. Filed under Sports.
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