Bong show could be new Pandora’s box

Published 7:17 am Wednesday, May 4, 2016

By American Press Staff

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There’s an important lesson to be learned from the Laremy Tunsil saga/nightmare at the NFL draft, and it is this:</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They never learn.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There’s a secondary lesson there, too:</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They probably never will.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Some of us, in fact, were mildly amused at the secondary backlash from the Tunsil Affair, the predictable bright-side musings that, well, at least this sad tale can be an eye-opening Exhibit A for future young players in the spotlight — an excellent cautionary tale for the need for mature discretion when handling even their seemingly private gas-masked bong sessions.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Well, good luck with that.</span>

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<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">As if all the young cocksure knuckleheads out there were dutifully taking notes as the whole surreal experience for Tunsil unfolded. As if light bulbs went off as all those with NFL aspirations watched and nodded attentively as a million or so dollars went down the drain with every team that passed on Tunsil before the Miami Dolphins finally bit at No. 13.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Lesson learned?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Three nights after Tunsil’s travails, four highly touted Auburn sophomore players were arrested on marijuana charges.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">At least they were not wearing gas masks.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Tunsil may well have learned HIS lesson.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The whole affair may have scared him straight and narrow.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But if more than 100 years of college football —some 240 years of American history — have taught us anything, it’s that there will always be knuckleheads out there, disproportionately among our fledgling youth.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There is no real, fail-safe cure, although the aging process sometimes helps.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">College players have been doing stupid things since before leather helmets replaced bad mutton chops as protection.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The next generation then, as now, always comes in feeling bullet proof.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">This was a new angle, however.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The way the Tunsil drama played out with the seemingly 1-2 punch —</span> <span style="font-style: italic;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">let’s synchronize our watches</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">— of the hacked Twitter account, then the follow-up hacked Instagram account, almost seemed like a CIA operation.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It surely did not overly shock the NFL that one of its incoming newbies might have dabbled with the illicit weed as a college student.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">More telling, perhaps, or just as damning, was the way he was seemingly mugging for the cameras during the now infamous video.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Lesson learned?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In the last 10 years, virtually every college football player has heard “the talk” from their coaches about the potential dangers of social media, all of them heightened by their celebrity status in town.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Never mind that most of the head coaches have to entrust a grad assistant to run their own Twitter account, just to make them look hip and trendy to potential recruits.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Surely Ole Miss had that lecture and surely Tunsil attended.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Yet there he was clowning around with a gas mask, flaunting his apparent drug use for somebody who was obviously filming it for posterity and, potentially, the world wide web.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It will go down as a milestone chapter in the Dangers of Social Media.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it’s not likely to change much.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Despite untold examples, have athletes suddenly seen the light and quit beating up on girlfriends and innocent citizens?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">For that matter, what if this whole mess just opened up a whole new arena?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The $10 million or so that fell out of Tunsil’s pockets didn’t go to his favorite charity. Somebody else moved up — and pocketed the difference — every time Tunsil fell another notch in the NFL rookie pay scale’s pecking order.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">What if it’s our worst nightmare?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">What if it was unscrupulous agents taking the notes and learning the valuable (i.e., monetary) life’s lessons?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">What if their lesson learned, the slap to the forehead epiphany, was “Why didn’t I think of that?”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Let’s just say you’ve got the No. 3-ranked wide receiver in the draft. What if you’re particularly unscrupulous (they’re out there) and wonder what might happen if suddenly, on draft night, social media exploded with damning, highly embarrassing information on the top two wide receivers ranked ahead of your client?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Hmmmm.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">None of it would even have to be true.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It might even be a carefully timed, well-orchestrated internet explosion. Your gridiron talent agency, in fact, might have a clandestine department filled with social media whiz kids and evil computer hackers.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">At the least, it’s a pretty good blue print for that long-awaited, high-tech espionage sports movie, best of all with trendy social media tie-ins.</span>

<span class="R~sep~AZaphdingbatdot7pt">l</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">Scooter Hobbs</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">covers LSU</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">athletics. Email him at</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">shobbs@americanpress.com</span>

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<p class="p1">Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress">twitter.com/ScooterAmPress</a>

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