What Riley Cooper said was ridiculous and unacceptable and he is rightly paying a heavy price for his idiocy. Philadelphia is a TOUGH town to play in under the best of circumstances. To do something that incredibly stupid in a city with such a large minority population makes it extremely tough.

It is 2013 and that language is patently unacceptable in most (but regrettably not all) parts of this country.

That said, as someone who has worked in PR - mostly crisis communications - for a long time and made a decent living in it, I must say that the guy's apology was extremely impressive and very well done.

Cooper was forthright, contrite and took it right on the chin. He was extremely articulate and he didn't run from anything or make any excuses whatsoever. Excellent job! I was very impressed with him and whomever is advising him is doing a very good job, IMHO.

I predict that he will survive this and that is largely attributable to how well he has handled this after it came out. The next few days will tell the tale. He should not do any more interviews or offer any more statements on the matter. He has already made his statement and he needs to kill this off as quickly as he can. Every interview he gives going forward just rips off the scab and starts everything anew. This needs to die out for a while before he talks about it with anyone other than his teammates.

This will be a storyline that follows him for at least this year. For example, if the Eagles play on national television, they will definitely broach that issue with him. Also, ESPN is going to want to do a piece on this and he'll probably have no choice but to do a piece on NFL Countdown. The Eagles play the Redskins on MNF on Week 1. He should do an on camera for that and then decline comment the rest of the year. It also would help his cause immensely if the Eagles win and he is a part of their success.

If I were him, I'd be careful going over the middle.

Saw this pic yesterday...

What I don't get is what would prompt him to say it at a Kenny Chesney concert?

LOL! That's true. Saying you would fight every black person at a Kenny Chesney concert is a bit like me saying I'll fight every straight dude at a Madonna concert.

They are few and far between.

(08-01-2013 01:16 PM)vandiver49 Wrote:  What I don't get is what would prompt him to say it at a Kenny Chesney concert?

Why would he go to a Kenny Chesney concert?

He apologized. That should be the end of it. Unless all black players who use the word in every sentence want to get up in front of the country and apologize to society for keeping it in the language, this should be a non issue. There are now people actually calling for this word to be made illegal or punishable by law. This is not a communist country. Let's get over ourselves.

It's time for this country to stop acting like a bunch of little delicate drama queens. Is this pro sports or Degrassi Junior High? He said something offensive after he had been drinking at a freakin concert. He apologized and will attend sensitivity training(as if that isn't ridiculous enough). The end.

I actually agree with that. I think it's a little weird to be confronted by such naked racism in the year 2013 - especially for a guy who works in a predominantly African American environment - but that's just me.

Honestly, when I hear that word, or words like it - and you do hear it from time to time - it usually reflects more poorly on the person who says it than who they are actually saying it about. To me it usually denotes poor education, unkindness, lack of polish, etc. Basically, I think it - and words like it - makes its user look backwards and stupid.

However, this is America and one of the primary perks of living in a country like this one is that for better or worse, we have a lot of leeway to say and do stupid things, as Cooper did.

Now, if I were a sponsor of Cooper's (not sure how many of those there are), I would definitely drop him and that would be my right. He's just not good enough to justify risking alienating consumers. However, as a fan, I'm fine with how he handled it.

The guy said something stupid and offensive but he owned it. I'm still disappointed in him though...for going to a Kenny Chesney concert in the first place. Seriously, how many songs can people tolerate about drinking a beer on a beach in Mexico? We get it, you live a leisure lifestyle. We're very pleased for you. Now please write 57 more songs about it.

(08-01-2013 05:36 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  I actually agree with that. I think it's a little weird to be confronted by such naked racism in the year 2013 - especially for a guy who works in a predominantly African American environment - but that's just me.

Honestly, when I hear that word, or words like it - and you do hear it from time to time - it usually reflects more poorly on the person who says it than who they are actually saying it about. To me it usually denotes poor education, unkindness, lack of polish, etc. Basically, I think it - and words like it - makes its user look backwards and stupid.

However, this is America and one of the primary perks of living in a country like this one is that for better or worse, we have a lot of leeway to say and do stupid things, as Cooper did.

Now, if I were a sponsor of Cooper's (not sure how many of those there are), I would definitely drop him and that would be my right. He's just not good enough to justify risking alienating consumers. However, as a fan, I'm fine with how he handled it.

The guy said something stupid and offensive but he owned it. I'm still disappointed in him though...for going to a Kenny Chesney concert in the first place. Seriously, how many songs can people tolerate about drinking a beer on a beach in Mexico? We get it, you live a leisure lifestyle. We're very pleased for you. Now please write 57 more songs about it.

Agree with everything you said (including and especially the part about Kenny Chesney). It has been a bad month for the University of Florida. Urban Meyer had quite a group of players down there.

I think the entire Eagles organization should have to watch this episode of South Park.

From Sabrina Shelfer:

A preacher, a murderer, and a racist walk into a bar.

Bartender says "Welcome back, 2008 Gators' Offense"!

(07-31-2013 10:15 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  What Riley Cooper said was ridiculous and unacceptable and he is rightly paying a heavy price for his idiocy. Philadelphia is a TOUGH town to play in under the best of circumstances. To do something that incredibly stupid in a city with such a large minority population makes it extremely tough.

It is 2013 and that language is patently unacceptable in most (but regrettably not all) parts of this country.

That said, as someone who has worked in PR - mostly crisis communications - for a long time and made a decent living in it, I must say that the guy's apology was extremely impressive and very well done.

Cooper was forthright, contrite and took it right on the chin. He was extremely articulate and he didn't run from anything or make any excuses whatsoever. Excellent job! I was very impressed with him and whomever is advising him is doing a very good job, IMHO.

I predict that he will survive this and that is largely attributable to how well he has handled this after it came out. The next few days will tell the tale. He should not do any more interviews or offer any more statements on the matter. He has already made his statement and he needs to kill this off as quickly as he can. Every interview he gives going forward just rips off the scab and starts everything anew. This needs to die out for a while before he talks about it with anyone other than his teammates.

This will be a storyline that follows him for at least this year. For example, if the Eagles play on national television, they will definitely broach that issue with him. Also, ESPN is going to want to do a piece on this and he'll probably have no choice but to do a piece on NFL Countdown. The Eagles play the Redskins on MNF on Week 1. He should do an on camera for that and then decline comment the rest of the year. It also would help his cause immensely if the Eagles win and he is a part of their success.

On that Orangebloods radio show yesterday the guy brought up a point:

If the NFL is so up in arms about the use of the N word then why have the Redskins, a racial slur to Native Americans, been able to keep their name.

I agreed 100% with that line of thought.

************

I also agree that most blacks who use the word themselves or even try to spin that er vs a ending as different words don't really understand. You can't have it that popular to use the way it is and then come down on others who use it.

I do too. In fact, I think this is why the NFL has been so slow to step in on this one. They don't want to open Pandora's box and that is precisely what would happen if they ruled this as being punishable by suspension for racial intolerance but that same standard doesn't apply to the franchise's actual name in Washington. I DEFINITELY think that has a lot to do with the NFL's silence on this issue.

(08-02-2013 08:02 AM)Hokie4Skins Wrote:  From Sabrina Shelfer:

A preacher, a murderer, and a racist walk into a bar.

Bartender says "Welcome back, 2008 Gators' Offense"!

<chuckle>


If spending 5 minutes with Tim Tebow is supposed to make you a better person, it makes you wonder what these guys would have been like if they hadn't spent all that time with him, lol.

The whole idea of a public apology is stupid and unnecessary. It fixes NOTHING because it rarely ever changes anyone's mind about what was said. In fact, I can't even think of any cases where a public apology had any affect other than prolonging the amount of time that the screwup stays in the news cycle.

(08-04-2013 09:52 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  The whole idea of a public apology is stupid and unnecessary. It fixes NOTHING because it rarely ever changes anyone's mind about what was said. In fact, I can't even think of any cases where a public apology had any affect other than prolonging the amount of time that the screwup stays in the news cycle.

Tim Hardaway. Made anti-gay remarks. Apologized, met with a number of gay rights groups. Light went on about discrimination. Now, is a great and visible supporter of gay rights.

It can happen, if you don't just apologize and end it there, but follow up and are open to learn as to WHY your words/actions were offensive.

Dude F*cked up. BFD. He is also being totally accountable for his actions which is way more than 99.999% of those who say they are offended by what he said would ever do.

He shouldn't have said it. He should've apologized. He should suffer some consequences. But I'm wondering what his attitude was when he said it? I know people will disagree with me (and they should because what I'm about to write probably isn't true), but I'm wondering if he was saying it as though he were either identifying with the race in question, or if he was using it as some of his African American teammates might: As a term referring to his equals.

It's hard to be around an expression used by one group and to totally internalize the fact that you don't belong to that group and you are not allowed to use that term. But I just don't see any way for an NFL player to be a success in their field and harbor racist attitudes. I think maybe the opposite might be true in Riley's case: He forgot that he's not part of the group he was referring to.

Just to make it clear: I don't believe that, just because African Americans use the term, whites are free to do so. But I'm also wondering if I might slip up like Cooper did if I were surrounded by people using the term - not because I didn't like those people, but because I had come to identify them as teammates, colleagues, and friends.

Just a thought. He doesn't seem to be a bad guy.