It is quite easy to dodge ethical questions involving race, religion and sexism especially as they relate to sports. However, as I have been asked about Riley 
Cooper, I thought I would open it up to an ethical discussion.
To provide a little background we must go back to June 2013 and to a Kenny Chesney concert. At such events, it is essential that thousands of people must be managed in order to maintain a safe venue, chain-link fences and security guards are posted for crowd control.
Let us also not forget that at such concerts virtually every concert attendee has a Smartphone with a recording device and camera. This fact will come into play shortly.
Even with swarms of people jockeying for position, a professional football player 6’ 3” in height and about 230 pounds is not invisible. I have been around professional football players. A “ripped” 230 pound player with low body fat is not like a 230 pound couch potato!
Riley Cooper, by his own admission, was inebriated; sloshed. He tried to gain access to the concert in an “illegal” manner. He was stopped, and then he had a verbal altercation with an African-American security guard. He used an idiotic racist expletive. The clip is all over the internet thanks to those Smartphone’s we were just talking about. I should add that he threatened to jump the fence and take on every other African American security guard in the stadium. The exchange blossomed on the internet in July.
Stupid is and stupid does
When the video surfaced, Riley Cooper was sober and putting his body through the rigors that would prepare him for training camp. He saw what he did and so did his teammates and coaches, many of who are African-American and, of course, the executives of his team, the compliance people and executives of the football league. His fans saw it as well – many of whom are also African-American.
At first, he did what many athletes, movie stars, television personalities and even politicians do these days when caught saying incredibly stupid things: he took to the social media.
It is possible to find references to many tweets and posts by those who feel themselves entitled; indeed, we can find tweeted apologies for racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, sexism, homophobia, movie-bashing, anti-Christian sentiments, you name it. Occasionally tweets suffice, but sometimes, those 140 keystrokes come roaring back in the other direction.
Here is one of Cooper’s tweets exactly quoted:
“I am so ashamed and disgusted with myself. I want to apologize. I have been offensive. I have apologized to my coach, Jeffrey Lurie, and . . .”
For the sake of balance, I am indeed aware of rumors that before the video surfaced, that Mr. Cooper was, himself, the victim of extortion on twitter. He blocked the person committing extortion. He reported the threatening tweets to his superiors. All it did, of course, was to add another layer to the mess.
I’m Not a Heart Surgeon
I lecture on ethics and I emphasize the consequences of ethical missteps. I don’t have the ability to look inside a person’s heart.
Riley Cooper could not have been contrite enough. He said all of the right things. He was fined by his team – and he should have been. He was excused from training camp and was required to take four days worth of counseling. When he returned, he again apologized. Some of his teammates stuck up for him; some did not. The “sticking up” part did not fall under racial lines. To his credit, his coach has stuck by him. It is what a good coach should do.
Listening to the chatter on sports talk radio, the sentiment among the ex-athletes was to “let the situation work itself out” in the locker room. It is not enough. He must become a better person to the public.
The public includes the fans who come to see him play; people who spend their hard-earned money on tickets. They are not professional athletes with major endorsements but people who must get up each day and trudge off to work. Mr. Cooper cannot apologize to any of them personally, but he can redeem himself through good deeds, good actions and a good heart.
Get Off Your Podiums
Riley Cooper is in the public eye. His penalty for playing a sport on a national stage – and getting paid pretty well for doing it – is to understand that anything he does will be magnified and “re-tweeted.”
He made a mistake, not only for what he said and did, but for what he may have felt. I am hopeful this experience will make him a better person. He deserves the chance; the same second chance anyone of us deserves. There will be those who will angrily sermonize about Riley Cooper. They had better darn well examine their own deeds first.
Were I to meet Mr. Cooper I would ask him but one simple question: “On which road does your heart plan to go from here?”
We are all given such a choice at one time or another, even those guys on their podiums. No one should prevent Riley Cooper from trying to take the right road…and use his Second Chance for good!
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