Myles Garrett Helmet Incident A Teaching Moment For Young Football Players
BOSTON (CBS) - Myles Garrett's actions in the final moments of Thursday night's football game has rocked the sports world. The defensive end for the Cleveland Browns ripped off Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph's helmet and hit him with it.
"Yeah I think Coach Belichick tries to use it as teaching moments," New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said Friday. "So he talks about not throwing punches, not touching the referees and staying on the sidelines."
The brawl has also left an impression on young athletes. "To have the game end like that is really disappointing and I am sure the guys on both sides were very disappointed," Catholic Memorial Linebacker Owen McGowan said.
The Catholic Memorial football team in West Roxbury is undefeated this season. Senior quarterback Barrett Pratt says he was shocked when he saw Garrett rip the helmet off of Rudolph and was happy to hear he was suspended.
"Definitely suspended for the year. Fined, definitely has no place in this game," Barrett said.
After the game Garrett admitted he messed up.
"It's disappointing when that happens to your role models and you start to rethink why they are your role models," McGowan said.
On Friday night CM will play Franklin in the Division 1 finals. The winner goes to the Super Bowl. The theme at the school is "character matters." The players say after watching last night's NFL game there is a lot of lessons to be learned.
"There's great athletes out there that we can look up to and obviously there's people out there that just are not the best role models. You just have to pick and choose who you want to become," Barrett said.
Head Coach John DiBiaso said he plans to use it as a teaching moment. "As a coach you hope that coaches at all levels whether it be college, high school, Pop Warner, take it as a teaching moment and say 'you know this is not the way to behave,'" DiBiaso said.
CM has a rich history of teaching the students the importance of having good moral character. "For us character matters," said Catholic Memorial President Peter Folan. "Part of that requires us as a school to think about how to do that intentionally in the classroom, in the hallways, in the lunchroom, on the fields in the stage."
