Keller @ Large: Tom Brady's Legacy May Extend Beyond Football
BOSTON (CBS) - Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald is one of the best sports columnists in the country, and a very nice guy as well. But I hope he is dead wrong about what he wrote Thursday about the long-term fallout from Deflategate, a topic in desperate need of some perspective.
"…Many years from now, the lead paragraph to [Tom] Brady's obituary will include the four Super Bowl championships (maybe more) ... and Deflategate," wrote Buckley. "My apologies if that sounds cruel or insensitive. But the sobering reality is that cheating is the third rail of professional sports. A lot of bad stuff on an athlete's resume and/or rap sheet gets erased, cleansed, forgotten, over time. The OUIs? The petty thefts? The bankruptcy proceedings? They fade away. But the cheating hangs around."
Really?
Taking a small amount of air out of the football is an offense more severe than driving drunk or stealing?
How about wife beating or child abuse, a couple of other recent NFL player offenses that didn't draw as much hype as Deflategate?
More important is Buckley's assumption about what society views as the most important measurements of a man's life. I pray he's wrong about this.
A lazy obituary writer might well put this trivial affair in the lede, but that doesn't make it any less stupid and vulgar.
Our lives ought to be measured by the way we treat others, especially our families, and by what we contribute to the community. From what I can see of Brady, there's plenty to write about there. Who knows what good he and his wife might do with their millions after he retires?
Brady's football life might turn out to be the least of his legacy.
Let's hope the esteemed Mr. Buckley is wrong about the spin a shallow culture might put on it.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
