Buried in the sports pages and difficult to find within hours of being posted on the ESPN, Fox Sports and SI websites, there is a story out there that no one wants to address.
Former New York Giants star Lawrence Taylor is now a registered sex offender.
No one, not even Jason Whitlock, seems willing to tackle this nasty news and offer an opinion on Taylor or the seedy underbelly of humanity in which Taylor has long dwelled.
While I am disappointed in the current voices of sports media for not touching this story with a 10-foot pole, I get it. I understand why. Who wants to go there?
The whole situation is disgusting, impure and just plain gross. Just reading Taylor’s comments on the matter leave you in dire need of a shower. You’d need turpentine for your eyes.
But if we don’t discuss this, if it’s not addressed, then we’re doing a great disservice.
Or maybe I just need to get it off my chest.
Life and sports aren’t always happy. Every day is not a video montage of “One Shining Moment.” It’s not always feel good stories.
I get it. During a time of optimism, with baseball on the brink of another season, the beginning of spring and the NCAA Tournament providing smiles and buzzer beaters (as well as a distraction from this silly NFL labor dispute), the last thing we want to talk about is a washed up, former pro athlete who has been given probation for the use of an underage prostitute.
But it must be said: Lawrence Taylor is sick, depraved and should be in jail.
It’s widely known that Taylor used narcotics throughout his career and was suspended several times by the NFL for drug use. It’s also widely know that Taylor really ramped up this activity after his playing career was over, spending thousands of dollars a day on cocaine and basically living in seclusion surrounded by other drug users.
Taylor has admitted to using prostitutes before, mainly between 1994-2001, but last year he was indicted on charges of third degree statutory rape, sexual misconduct and patronizing a 16-year-old prostitute. He recently pled guilty and avoided jail time, receiving six years’ probation.
But he made no apologies.
Taylor told Fox News’ Shepard Smith that he blamed the institution of prostitution for ending up with an underage girl, but never took responsibility for himself.
“I’m not the cause of prostitution,” Taylor said. “And sometimes I make mistakes and I may go out there. And I didn’t pick her up on no playground. She wasn’t hiding behind the school bus or getting off a school bus. This was a working girl that came to my room.”
Just the fact he had to distinguish her as someone who wasn’t getting off a school bus gives me the willies. But a working girl? Yeah, LT, she’s a real 9-5er with deadlines and a briefcase.
Need that turpentine yet?
Whether directly or indirectly, Taylor is one of the causes of prostitution. As long as there are people like Taylor willing to pay for sex, then there will be prostitution.
Taylor said, “I’m not looking for a relationship. Hey, sometimes I look for some company. It’s all clean. I don’t have to worry about your feelings. It’s all clean.”
Actually, Mr. Taylor – it’s anything but clean.
It’s sick and seedy and disgusting.
Regardless of age – 16 or 19 – Taylor has something wrong with him.
This isn’t Charlie Sheen crazy funny, with cute little catch phrases.
It’s just sick and twisted.
The fact that Taylor is indifferent to the whole thing is perhaps most frightening.
“I guess you call it a crime,” he said on Tuesday. “It’s one of those crimes you don’t think about. You never think you’re gonna get busted because everyone does it until you get busted, and then it’s more embarrassing than anything else.”
A crime you don’t think about? No, it’s a crime we don’t think about because most of us don’t engage in that kind of reprehensible activity.
Taylor’s in some different, alternate reality – probably brought on by years of drug use and an out of control, narcissistic and toxic personality that thinks he’s somehow on another level.
He once said, “For me, crazy as it sounds, there is a real relationship between wild, reckless abandon off the field and being that way on the field.”
No, LT, there’s not a relationship. At all.
Taylor created one in his own mind to justify his actions. People do that all the time, some sort of reasoning mechanism to try and convince themselves their actions are not misguided.
Prostitution is a serious crime. Everyone, contrary to his belief, doesn’t do it. And it should be more than embarrassing, it’s should be shameful.
It should be a harsher sentence that six years’ probation.
Taylor is an empty man with an empty soul. Perhaps he’s always been that way.
After the Giants won the Super Bowl in January of 1987, he said, “Everyone was so excited, but by then I felt deflated. I’d won every award, had my best season, finally won the Super Bowl. I was on top of the world, right? So what could be next? Nothing. The thrill is the chase to get to the top. Every week the excitement builds and builds and builds, and then when you’re finally there and the game is over…nothing.”
For people like Taylor, empty people, there is nothing. No joy, no sense of contentment, even during a peak accomplishment.
And so he has continually chased “The Chase” all his life. He’s filled it with prostitution and drugs, searching for the big build, the thrill of the chase.
What he should feel now is the cold bars of prison shutting on his face.
How can you plead guilty to third degree statutory rape and not be in jail? How is it we honor and even remotely respect people like this? How is this man in the Hall of Fame?
He should be first ballot Hall of Shame.
We mock and despise Pete Rose for betting on baseball, but allow Taylor into his sport’s ultimate honor with open arms?
Taylor talks about feeling empty and clearly tries to fill that void by less than noble or honorable means. Thanks to his actions, we’re the ones left feeling empty and sad. Empty and sad that this emotionless, shell of a man could make millions of dollars in the NFL, in endorsements and movies to feed his actions and his own hubris while hard working people strive just to make it to the next day.
While innocent people die of starvation, of natural disasters – like the tsunami we just saw destroy a part of the globe – Taylor somehow avoids jail time so he can continue to do his best to erase human decency and morality, all while increasing its depravity.
He’s been found guilty of tax evasion, been arrested numerous times for narcotics and prostitution, and now has agreed to a plea bargain of two misdemeanors: sexual misconduct and underage prostitution.
Misdemeanors? Are you kidding me?
It’s safe to say we might have figured out what Taylor has really been chasing all these years: Prison.
It’s only right we fulfill that desire for him, to fill that need that burns deep in his empty heart.
Taylor’s earned it, right? He’s worked hard to achieve it, so I say we give him the same feeling he had after the Super Bowl – that empty feeling of nothing but hard time alone in a prison cell.
There’s no crime in wanting that for you, is there Mr. Taylor?
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