Last week, two NFL players were shipwrecked on a fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico, and after days of the Coast Guard combing the waters, the search was abandoned and hope lost. Following this incident, the world barely stirred, dismissing these men as dead. My question is: Why?
It's simply astounding how a week after two of the NFL's players were capsized and pronounced drowned, everyone is focused on a crybaby like Terrell Owens getting signed or a juicer like Alex Rodriguez getting surgery. Sure, it's great and all that A-Rod is fixing his hip, but shouldn't we be keying in on the more pressing issue, like further mourning these gallant men? Well, here's a feeble attempt to do what the bigwigs like ESPN and SI neglected.
The first man, Corey Smith, was a defensive end for the Detroit Lions, described by ex-Lions coach Rod Marinelli as the "cornerstone of what this league is about: toughness, effort and team." Smith quickly earned the respect of his teammates and coaches in his short stint on the gridiron.
Smith said he would've liked to stick with football after he finished his playing career, becoming a scout or a coach after serving as a coaching intern to the NFL Europe squad Rhein Fire. He participated in numerous charity events for the Lions, helping to raise over $100,000 at one golf tournament. But that was simply the man Smith was. He was a giver in a league filled with takers.
Maybe, being so modest, Smith wouldn't want all this attention, but I have a striking feeling his family feels otherwise.
Next, there's Marquis Cooper, a linebacker for the Oakland Raiders and a perennial NFL journeyman who bounced around the league for five years and suited up for six teams. Even though he recorded just 37 tackles throughout his career, his presence and character clearly reverberated throughout the ranks of football's best.
The third man, William Bleakley, a former University of South Florida football player, was also on the ship when it capsized into the choppy waters. A memorial was held for him recently, with hundreds of people lining up to pay their respects and shed their tears. None of those people went back to work that day and none will ever stop thinking about Bleakley, so why should we?
What is it about death that makes us move on so quickly to more trivial things? Is it that forgetting will help us grieve? Perhaps. Or maybe it's the world quickly looking away, viewing this is as another sad boating accident as opposed to the massive tragedy it is.
If you feel like saying that a week is enough time to move on, just ask the family of Max Gilpin. At the end of an Aug. 20 high school football practice in Kentucky last year, the sophomore Gilpin collapsed and fell into septic shock caused by multiple organ failure and heat stroke. He died three days later. Witnesses said that the coach, Jason Stinson, repeatedly denied his team water while making them run sprints, verbally berating them as they grinded through their drills in the blistering sun.
What is simply amazing about that story is that players came out to defend their coach, rather than speak on behalf of their deceased comrade. Phrases like "Coach is amazing" and "Coach truly cares about his players" dotted the news, but is seven months enough time to forget about the accomplishments and tragic fall of a young boy? Like Allen Iverson was talking about practice, we're talking about lives here. Not football, not sprints, and not boating, but lives.
It doesn't matter if it's a high school football player in the back fields of Kentucky or a defensive end on the worst team in NFL history. Tragedies like this are impossible to move on from, and it's upsetting to see that the sports world has done it in a matter of hours. Sport, race, social status, income or gender should not diminish the fact that these three lost men had lives that were too short. It's about time the world recognized this because it's never too late.
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Alex Prewitt is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at Alexander.Prewitt@tufts.edu.
