First Paris Hilton gets an absolutely ungodly amount of news coverage, which she’s able to parlay into celebrity status by…what was it again? Oh yeah, releasing a steamy video on the Internet. Not releasing a steamy video in church. Or doing a completely spontaneous strip show in the middle of a busy street. A steamy video. On the Internet. Which is about as rare and shocking as, say, breathing.
Now Armageddon has erupted in the Vikings camp because a bunch of players were supposed to be using the time constructively, and instead had a wild party. Here’s the grand total of what I know so far:
There was a whole bunch of unspecified sexual activites.
It was pretty damn wild.
There were strippers. Some of them shipped in.
One of them may have been as young as 18 (Uh, that’s still the age of majority, right?)
There may possibly have been prostitutes (mabye) brought in. Perhaps. Possibly.
Did I mention that it was really, really wild?
Oh yeah, they were supposed to be building team harmony and getting their minds prepared for the games and stuff.
This is a scandal?? We don’t even have actual freaking allegations, for crying out loud (and cut that “one of them was almost illegal” crap right now). Geez, I knew the current administration was making yet another pathetic effort to enforce their ridiculous Puritan ethic, but even they’re not this lame. There have been no charges. None. Stripping still isn’t illegal, last I heard. If these players were shirking their responsibilities, that’s a management issue. Not legal.
I refuse to acknowledge this as a scandal until I know two things: 1. What the bloody freakin’ hell actually happened, and 2. why I should care, other than some infantile reactionary sex-phobic eww-eww-ick-ick mentality I haven’t had for a single day in my life.
Lewd football players…sheesh. What next, less than completely honest used car salesmen?
They’re supposed to be role models, and blahdy blahdy blah. It makes good copy, I suppose. I wonder how many people who don’t have to write about sports actually give a crap.
I’m willing to bet this wouldn’t be such a big deal if the Vikings hadn’t gotten off to such a horrible start. As it is, this incident, the team’s crappiness, the apparently clueless leadership of soon-to-fired coach Mike Tice, and a number of other negative stories over the past few few months have all come together to create an avalanche of bad publicity. It’s just the most conspicuous example of how the whole Minnesota Vikings organization is unravelling.
It’s bad because apparently while stripping isn’t illegal, apparently trucking strippers in from other states is illegal in Minnesota (I don’t know for certain; it’s just what I’ve heard). So laws were broken.
The crew members of the boats that were hired (again, apparently) were not in on what the cruise entailed. When they found out (in technicolor!) what the entertainment was to be, they got disgusted enough to tell the captain. Who was also disgusted enough to turn around and head back in early. Rumor has it that some of these crew members were young girls (say 18ish?) that didn’t sign up for this. It’s possible they were propositioned and felt very threatened by extremely strong, agressive men that probably outweighed them two or three times over.
While it’s doubtful that any charges of prostitution will be brought (I doubt you could prove it), it’s not too much of a stretch that many people 'round these parts see it as such. While most probably aren’t prudish about prostitution or sex per se, group orgies involving oral sex and other sex acts and numerous onlookers is another matter - this is probably what’s disgusting many.
No one’s saying that this isn’t typical of NFL players - indeed, apparently parties like these are pretty expected (it seems the rookies throw one for the veterans every year). The difference is that usually the public doesn’t hear about the sordid details. We’re inclined to live and let live, so long as we don’t have to hear about it.
And these are public figures - we constantly barraged about how much volunteer, good work they do with United Way commercials and messages about charities they fund and “that sack’s another $100 for the McDonald House” appearing on the scoreboards. This sort of story damages that image. We’re aware that NFL players aren’t squeaky clean, but we like to pretend they are.
Add to that how horribly the Vikings are doing this year - they’ve totally fallen apart. Support for them isn’t at any sort of high right now, and this worsens it. They’ve lost most of their games so far, they’re trying to get a stadium built, we’re still sore about the Randy trade, some feel that the Wylf’s got snookered by Red’s secret machinations, Tice is an utter failure, and this on top of it all? Couldn’t have come at a worse time.
If the Vikings were 6-0 and crushing opponents, no one would care anymore than anyone really cared about the Cowboys back in the 90s or Mets in the 80s. But the team is a big, sucky mess and the general feeling is that these guys ought to fix the team before they have wild parties.
The story isn’t so much that there were strippers and hookers on the boat. It’s that, once again, the Vikings failed to score. Sure there was sex to be had, but it wasn’t the Vikings players. Hookers and strippers are the hanky-panky Red Zone. The Vikings players failed to convert a sure thing yet again.
My brother went to a stag party on a rented boat in Minnetonka. Strippers and Prostitutes were present. Blow jobs were given. The captain swung by Fletchers (A bar on the lake) and got himself good and liquored up.
It would seem that the Vikings’ mistake was renting from the wrong outfit.
A few clarifications on Snickers’s post, which covers it pretty well. I’ll quote from a Sports Illustrated article (available online, but only to subscribers, so you’ll have to look at a paper copy for the full thing). Regarding the annual party planned by veterans and paid for by rookies:
SI’s Michael Silver interviewed Vikings center Matt Birk (on injured reserve for the season, and not linked to the boat party) and got a little bit of humor among the disgust:
The role models comment is bullshit brough up by the moral fuckheadority whenever they want to bitch about someone in the spotlight being naughty. Professional players are supposed to win games, not help people raise their kids.
Fuck, I hope the San Antonio errrr New Orleans Saints have a similar party. After losing 52-3 to Green Bay, maybe blowjobs will help them win a game or two.
The worst of all of this for the Vikes, from what I can see, is the stadium funding. They’re asking for millions and millions of public money to build them a new arena. After years of playing in the Toilet Bowl they actually looked like they were going to have a chance at getting the funding.
Now this? I can’t remember where I read it and the man wasn’t ID’d, but in an article the reporter asked if this would affect the stadium proposal. The quote was, “That’s not even on our radar.” Smooth.
A few of the other posters are correct in saying that up here (yes, I’m including the Dakotas) we don’t care much what you do, so long as we don’t have to hear about it and put up with the aftermath. Do sports stars engage in stupid behaviour? Hell yeah they do. Take a guy that has always had to struggle in life, never quite gew up, throw millions of dollars inhis account and let him run loose? I can’t beleive we don’t hear about this stuff weekly.
Hell, the writers for the Pioneer Press and Star-Tribune had a little fun with Moss but they usually had it out of their systems after the 2nd article. Even brushing up against a traffic cop caused little more than a few harrumphs. There was nothing really going on before that would make anyone really get up in arms. They were lone incidents and nothing to make a felony case over.
However, in the upper midwest we still have some sense of “family values”, as quaint as that may sound to some of you. A parent really doesn’t want to have to explain to his 9 year old what all the fuss is about when the kid idolizes these people. And if they were strippers and hookers brought in out of state (hence the FBI involvement) then yes, there is felonious activity, even if you don’t agree with the act being a crime.
And it will *really * piss that dad off if he has to end up paying for their stadium. What a way to fuck everything up in one night. I was looking forward to my Packers completely demoralizing them tomorrow. Now, the best we can get is a win. I don’t think the Vikings can get any more demoralized.
