Why We Were Too Quick to Judge and Label Richard Sherman

By Rebecca Ahdoot on January 28, 2014

You didn’t have to watch the Sewahawks 49ers game to see the big play. No, not the one during regulation. The one between Richard Sherman and Erin Andrews.

At this point we’ve all seen it, and we’ve all judged. Why? Because we always see players who are composed during interviews? Because Sherman was yelling? Whatever the case may be, it was pretty damn entertaining.

Social media blasted Sherman’s heat of the moment rant. But thats just it- it was in the heat of the moment, as were the posts from people on social media. The judgments we, myself included, made were premature.

Discussing the matter in my sports business class, the athletes, primarily the football players saw the debacle differently. One in which I was fortunate enough to hear.

First, the athletes made note of the fact that the interview had taken place only a few seconds after Sherman’s play. Isn’t that how we would expect someone to act? Why should Sherman suppress his emotions- he just made the play to take his team to the Superbowl.

Secondly, when you’re on the field you’re in attack mode which one can argue is why Sherman made attacking remarks to 49ers Michael Crabtree. In his CNN interview, Sherman said it takes certain characteristics to become a successful football player.

“It takes intensity. It takes focus.”

As well as anger, he noted.

“If you catch me in the moment on the field when I am still in that zone, when I’m still as competitive as I can be and I’m trying to be in the place where I have to be to do everything I can to be successful … and help my team win, then it’s not going to come out as articulate, as smart, as charismatic — because on the field I’m not all those things,” he said.

Thirdly, Sherman is a smart guy. He knows what he’s doing. If you’re not familiar with Sherman off the field, it may be a surprise that he doesn’t fit the uneducated athlete stereotype. Sherman graduated from Stanford, and it doesn’t stop there. He is a contributing writer at MMQB.com and contributes a great deal of time and money into the community.

He may be “soft” off the field, but when it comes to football he has to be that tough macho man.

It’s his persona.

Just a few days after his outburst, Sherman was featured in a new Beats commercial (which can be seen below), which shed light to the incident. However, it turned Sherman’s rant in a positive light in which he presented himself as an educated athlete whos stature is far more important to give in to people calling him a thug or even worse. Sherman chooses what he wants to hear, for he is confident in himself as an athlete but more so as a person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HESJgpYYUyM

Sherman made headlines and by doing so, he showed the world that he really is the best- at marketing himself at least. Looks like he took a few notes from Beyonce.

So who’s the “thug,” us or Sherman? The audience who so quickly misperceived him as an uneducated athlete or the athlete who’s outburst may have been part of a bigger picture and has already shed light on new opportunities for him.

His post game interview may suggest aggression, but it also suggests something entirely different- the guy has heart.

And hey, did you see the crowd surrounding him during media day? Wow.

 

 

 

 

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