11/05/24
May 06, 2010
Ex-NFL Great Lawrence Taylor Arrested: Former New York Giants star Lawrence Taylor was arrested Thursday morning in connection with a rape investigation involving a 15-year-old girl at a Rockland County, N.Y., hotel, authorities said.
Yikes. Earlier this week while flipping around, I caught a piece of a special on LT and his crack days. I hope this incident, awful as it is on its own, isn't the result of or cause of a relapse into that period of his life.
posted by Ufez Jones at 01:11 PM on May 06, 2010
Like I said in the huddle ... sad sad sad ...
posted by Spitztengle at 01:14 PM on May 06, 2010
No more NutriSystem for that guy.
posted by texpat at 01:16 PM on May 06, 2010
If he goes to trial, gets convicted, is sentenced and sent up and put in the general prison population, he'll be a marked man. He'll need to be in the best shape of his life before he gets in the chow line.
posted by beaverboard at 01:28 PM on May 06, 2010
Unless, through some freakish set of circumstances, he can establish a good wasn't-even-there defense, there's nothing you can say in the guy's defense.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 01:58 PM on May 06, 2010
RIP, LT
posted by smithnyiu at 02:17 PM on May 06, 2010
If this turns out to be proven, how does the NFL remove someone from the HOF?? I sure as hell believe he should be.
posted by wildbill1 at 07:13 PM on May 06, 2010
This sucks. I've looked up to LT for a long time, because he always struck me as one of the few dudes runnin' with that rarified HOF crowd who had his ego in check and his head on straight. I hadn't read about his crack problem.
In light of the beat-down this has put on my perspective of humanity, can we call a moratorium on all the searching-for-the-inevitable-ulterior-motive posts on the next feel-good story about an athlete who does something which seems purely altruistic?
Yeah yeah, I know....
It'd be nice, though.
posted by outonleave at 08:05 PM on May 06, 2010
The guy has always been a train wreck. And that's only based on what he has been caught doing. Imagine if we knew everything he did. Between the drug addiction, drinking, and having sex with children, LT needs to go away.
posted by dyams at 08:25 PM on May 06, 2010
Allegedly.
posted by geekyguy at 10:19 PM on May 06, 2010
wildbill1, this is a short explaination on that subject. It is the only thing I could find on the net in a brief search.
I am really disapointed in LT.
posted by steelergirl at 10:44 PM on May 06, 2010
I gotta go with dyams on this one. Just put him away for good.
posted by irunfromclones at 12:10 AM on May 07, 2010
how does the NFL remove someone from the HOF?? I sure as hell believe he should be
Not to sound like an apologist, or devil's advocate, but I think sport performances need to be separated from the "person" a little bit better.
Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist. Can't erase that fact. But you also can't erase the fact that he was the most feared heavyweight of his era. He was the heavyweight champion of the world. Train-wreck or not outside of the ring, he's got a sporting legacy.
I'd say LT falls frighteningly close. He was the most feared LB in the NFL. Not just of his era either ... he's credited with revolutionizing the game. Those are some big words. What he did in and for the game of football just can't be erased. If he's convicted of rape, he's gonna have hell to pay, no doubt. But that doesn't change what he did on the field.
Halls need to recognize the player/performance ... not the person. We are free to start a Hall of Real Good Guys/Gals if we want to. The two mentioned above are surely going to be refused any mention or acknowledgment at all.
I didn't want to just delete all of this, but I did read steelergirl's link ... of course, I gotta add O.J. to the list, but I think that Florio says it clearly.
And finally, I'm not trying to suggest that separating the (wo)man from the athlete is easy ... the history books will inevitably need to paint a fuller picture than just what the record books or Halls of Fame enshrine. I can't think of an example ('cause I'm not that fluent in art), but would we take a painting out of the Louvre if the painter was an asshat? Just curious.
posted by Spitztengle at 01:52 AM on May 07, 2010
how does the NFL remove someone from the HOF?? I sure as hell believe he should be
O.J. is still in the Hall. I don't think any sports hall wants to be in the business of retroactively removing athletes. One of them would probably have to commit a terror attack to make that happen.
posted by rcade at 08:47 AM on May 07, 2010
Sad. LT is now just another athlete or ex-athlete with a strong sense of entitlement using his status, privilege and celebrity to get his own way. We, as a society, need to stop putting these guys on pedestals.
(That'll be the day....)
posted by NerfballPro at 09:09 AM on May 07, 2010
I don't see how status, privilege or celebrity plays into this, if the allegations are true. Anybody could hire a $300 prostitute from a skeevy pimp who beats up under-age girls he procures by hanging around bus stops. (Anybody extremely stupid and reckless.)
As for not putting people like Taylor on pedestals, we put them on pedestals for reasons that have nothing to do with moral character. Taylor was arguably the most dominant player in the league during the height of his career. I don't see how we'd ever stop recognizing that on the grounds that the player might be a bad guy in his off hours.
posted by rcade at 09:28 AM on May 07, 2010
I don't think any sports hall wants to be in the business of retroactively removing athletes.
Not an athlete, but the Hockey Hall of Fame did remove a "builder" and strip him of his Hall of Fame status. Alan Eagleson Scandal
posted by tommybiden at 12:18 PM on May 07, 2010
Great player. Awful person.
posted by holden at 01:54 PM on May 07, 2010
I listened to an interview with LT's attorney this morning, and it was almost laughable. According to his lawyer, LT never had any contact with the girl's pimp, and had no idea who this pimp was. Yeah, right, as if some random 15-year-old walks into your hotel room and you give her $300 just because she's there. The attorney also claims that no act of intercourse took place. He stressed intercourse. It was awfully reminiscent of a certain famous man saying that he had never had sex with that woman, MS Lewinski. I can't believe the lawyer expects anyone with half of the common sense of a chipmunk to believe anything other than LT got it on in some way with an underage hooker.
posted by Howard_T at 04:07 PM on May 07, 2010
Thanks, Spitztengle for elaborating on my comment/link, and rcade for further embellishment.
As I have stated before, it is the National Football League Hall of Fame, not "Gee this is a great guy. Lets build a place where we can put busts of great guys." Hall of Fame.
I am sure we will hear arguements against Ray Lewis when it is his turn to be inducted.
posted by steelergirl at 05:47 PM on May 07, 2010
I always felt Pete Rose should be in the Baseball HOF. Regardless what he did off the field compared to OJ, LT and others he is looking like a saint to me. Of course it should have no bearing on HOF status. I agree with others, those places are reserved for athletes based on their on field performance.
Performance enhancing drugs or cheating on the field should keep a player out of the HOF but not their conduct away from the field.
Another interesting thought, Lawrence Taylor said in his book that he used cocaine while playing. Is cocaine a performance enhancer? How many tackles did he make while jacked up on blow?
Just imagine having your picture in the NFL HOF and the Megans lawwebsite for sex offenders.
posted by Atheist at 06:01 PM on May 07, 2010
I watched that Celebrity Crackhead show, too. What struck me is that for all of LTs bad behavior, it was pretty clear that the man never touched drugs before he signed an NFL contract. And then the first one he tried was cocaine.
That's a recipe for disaster right there.
I hate to hear this and my heart goes out to that poor girl. Living in NYC in the 80s, LT was The Man, and that 86 Super Bowl team was one of the better NFL squads ever, IMO. I hate to see this happen. You can put down the dope and still act like a crackhead.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:53 PM on May 08, 2010
I don't see how we'd ever stop recognizing that on the grounds that the player might be a bad guy in his off hours.
Interesting. So the guy can be a serial killer but as long as he's the most feared and dominant player of his sport he can go in to the Hall of Fame along with players who were just as dominant but never got so much as a parking ticket.
posted by irunfromclones at 03:42 AM on May 09, 2010
The criteria of the Pro Football Hall of Fame is explicitly limited to on-the-field performance and has nothing to do with off-the-field activities, John Clayton said yesterday on ESPN Radio. So if a player was "just as dominant," in your words, he presumably would be just as likely to reach the hall.
posted by rcade at 08:17 AM on May 09, 2010
I don't care if he argues that it was consensual, a 15 year old CHILD cannot give consent to a 51 year old man. This is looking pretty bad for LT.