MWPRInsight: Another Example of Why Athletes Need Qualified PR Professionals

By Monica Wood │MWPR, Inc.


Up to now, all I have done is post examples of off-the-field mistakes and choices athletes have made, expressing my frustration in the headers. But, I really need to finally state for the record my total disgust at what seems to be epidemic in the NFL. Why is it that SO many players are continuing to make the same bad decisions over and over again?


Isn't this a fraternity of sorts? Where is the internal communication line between fellow players getting the word out that "player X" of "Y team" was just arrested...and screaming to the members..."brothers, we need to stop the maddness and focus on the game." There is a responsibility that should be placed on the players (fellow members of the fraternity) to help nip this thing. Come on....you don't have to make the same mistake that others have made....learn from them.


And, now my finger is pointing to the agents, PAs and PR folks....where are you? How is it that your clients are able to get so out of hand? Why isn't anyone sitting them down and talking about how important it is to keep their nose clean off-the-field? Give them the examples of other players that have fallen from grace and let them know that they are not special....it could easily happen to them. Where is the mentoring? Where is the consulting? Where is the assistance?


If nothing else will get their attention, the mighty dollar should. Let them know how much they stand to loose with one mistake. Pound into them the point of how hard it will be to regain trust and to polish their tarnished brand.


My passion has always been sports and making sure athletes, especially ones that look like me, are able to embrace all they can from the priviledged opportunity they have....playing professional sports. It is a job...not a game. Can you please start acting like it?

If not, you could possibly suffer the same fate as Quincy Wilson. Let it stop with him.


Coming soon: The Playbook


Wilson released by Bengals, RB was previously arrested
Associated Press

CINCINNATI -- Running back Quincy Wilson has been waived by the Cincinnati Bengals.

It is the second time in the past five days the Bengals released a player who had been arrested.

The second-year running back from West Virginia was arrested last June 17 in Huntington, W.Va., and charged with disorderly conduct for failing to disperse after a weekend wedding party. The Bengals waived him Monday.

Wilson was the 10th Bengals player arrested in a 14-month span.

The Bengals recently released wide receiver Chris Henry, another former West Virginia star, after he was arrested last week on an assault charge, his fifth arrest while he was with the team.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

ESPN - Mauia arrested on battery charge, accused of punching man outside restaurant - NFL

"WESTON, Fla. -- Miami Dolphins fullback Reagan Mauia was charged with punching another man in the face and knocking him unconscious in a restaurant parking lot early Friday.

The victim, Michael Gianatassio, was treated at a hospital and released. Mauia was charged with battery and released on $1,000 bond, the Broward County Sheriff's Office said.

According to witnesses, Gianatassio and his girlfriend were walking by when Mauia asked Gianatassio what he was looking at. Gianatassio replied he wasn't looking at anyone, then was punched by the 270-pound Mauia, the sheriff's office said.

Mauia fled, but a witness took a photo of his vehicle, which allowed the sheriff's office to track him down. A witness identified him as the person who punched Gianatassio, the sheriff's office said. After being booked at the county jail, Mauia was released.

A sixth-round draft choice, Mauia started nine games for the Dolphins as a rookie last year.
'We are aware of the situation regarding Reagan earlier today,' coach Tony Sparano said in a statement. 'We will withhold any further comment because we are in the process of gathering more information.'

ESPN - Mauia arrested on battery charge, accused of punching man outside restaurant - NFL: Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

ESPN - Panthers' Smith wants young WR Jarrett to produce - NFL

Panthers' Smith wants young WR Jarrett to produce
Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Steve Smith wants Carolina Panthers teammate Dwayne Jarrett to get his act together.

Carolina's three-time Pro Bowl wide receiver was asked Monday if the embattled Jarrett was due for a coming-out party after his disappointing rookie season was followed by an offseason charge of driving by impaired.

"You know, the party session is actually over. This is the NFL," Smith said. "You make plays. You're here to play football. You do the party scene at your own discretion, but on Sundays, we're here to play football. If you can't play football, you won't be playing with the Carolina Panthers or any NFL team.
"So, this isn't a poke at anybody," he added at a charity golf tournament hosted by fellow NFL players Torry and Terrence Holt. "That's just the way it is. You know, you produce, you're in. You don't produce, you're out."

For years, the Panthers have searched for a second capable receiver to relieve the double teams faced by Smith seemingly every week, and team executives drafted Jarrett in the second round last year with the hope that he would develop into that kind of threat.

But he struggled to adjust to the NFL, never cracked the starting lineup, played in just seven games and caught six passes for 73 yards with no touchdowns. Then, when he reported last month for the team's offseason conditioning, Jarrett was arrested after police said he crossed the center line and ran a red light in the Charlotte suburb of Mint Hill.

The police report said Jarrett's blood-alcohol level was .12, above North Carolina's legal limit of .08 for driving. He pleaded not guilty to the DWI charge and faces a June 23 court date.
Now the Panthers are turning to one of their best players from their past to mentor Jarrett and become a quality No. 2 option to Smith.

They re-signed Muhsin Muhammad, who was released by the Bears. Muhammad turns 35 in May, spent nine seasons with Carolina after he was picked in the second round of the 1996 draft and still holds three club records.

"A lot of people look at [his] age, but I think he's like fine wine," Smith said.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press






ESPN - Panthers' Smith wants young WR Jarrett to produce - NFL

MWPRInsight: Crisis Situation...Who ELSE?

Police drop all but criminal trespassing charge against Colts' Keith
Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS -- Colts running back Kenton Keith was charged Tuesday with one count of criminal trespassing for refusing to leave a nightclub parking lot being cleared by police.

Keith will not face the charges of disorderly conduct, resisting law enforcement, public intoxication and contributing to the delinquency of a minor on which he was arrested early Sunday, said Matthew Symons, a spokesman for the Marion County prosecutor's office. Keith was released from jail later Sunday on his own recognizance. His initial hearing on the misdemeanor charge is set for Wednesday.

Officers working security tried to clear a crowd from the parking lot of the Cloud 9 club after it closed at 3 a.m. Sunday. The 27-year-old Keith and several others refused to leave and were laughing, dancing and joking, police said.

Police eventually ordered them to put their hands on a vehicle, but Keith refused and took out a cell phone to record the incident, according to an Indianapolis police report.
Keith kept saying, "I'm a Colts player, I'm a Colts player," the report said.

Last season was Keith's first with the Colts after playing in the Canadian Football League. He ran for 533 yards and scored four touchdowns, backing up Joseph Addai.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3361494&campaign=rss&source=NFLHeadlines

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

MWPRInsight Helpful Hints:Timing Preparedness in Crisis Management | The Business Crisis Counselor

The Business Crisis Counselor
By Richard Solomon
Thursday, March 27 2008

When there is an apprehension of difficulty, getting prepared to deal with the possibilities is less difficult/easier than when everything has already hit the fan. It is possible to manage personal apprehensions well before the fact at a stress level that doesn't have everyone reaching for their anxiety medications.

Since very few people ever have the misfortune to do this both ways -- way before the fact and at the moment of attack -- it's hard to appreciate the difference in levels of difficulty.

Having seen it both ways, I can reliably report that early warning prophylaxis is easier on the soul, easier on the budget, and far superior in the sense that the options are maximized. What you can do once an assault has begun or is about to begin immediately is greatly restricted by comparison. When assault has begun, triggers are pulled that may limit defensive strategies.
Denial is the most expensive company dynamic. Even if you are reasonably satisfied that "nothing is wrong," you need to take into account that if the sentiment is reliable and nothing is wrong in fact, that verification is worth a great deal in psychic revenue as well as downstream risk.

To view the rest go to: Personalities Under Stress: Timing Preparedness in Crisis Management The Business Crisis Counselor

MWPRInsight: 40 Years Later

By MWPRInsight as posted on BlackVoices.com

I believe that we are all here to play a specific role in making our communities reflect the dream that Dr. King preached, marched for and ultimately died trying to realize. It is our responsibility to pick up the baton and take an active role in improving ourselves first and then our personal circles of influence and work out from there. I am truly afraid of the generations that are behind me and are yet to be born...that the disconnect between 1968 and 2008 is becoming so wide, that the future will have no connection to the past, if we do not put action behind our constant rhetoric.

MWPRInsight: What did the Bengals to do contribute to Henry's downfall?

Bengals cut Henry, say they'll no longer tolerate his conduct
ESPN.com news services

CINCINNATI -- Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry lost his job while in jail awaiting arraignment on assault charges on Thursday.

The Bengals cut him after his fifth arrest since 2005.

An attorney for Henry, 24, entered not guilty pleas for him after Henry was accused of punching an 18-year-old man in the face and breaking his car window with a beer bottle.
Municipal Court Judge Bernie Bouchard set bond at $51,000 on charges of misdemeanor assault and criminal damaging. Noting Henry's previous arrests involving drugs, guns and alcohol, the judge called Henry "a one-man crime wave." He ordered electronic monitoring if Henry makes bail.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said it was premature to speculate on Henry's future in the league.

"It will be reviewed under the standard conduct policy," Aiello said.
Henry did not speak at the hearing. His lawyer, Perry Ancona, disputed the allegations in the complaint sworn by Gregory Meyer.

"We have a different set of facts we ask the court to consider," Ancona said.
Minutes before the arraignment, Ancona broke the news to Henry that he had been released.
Bengals president Mike Brown said in a statement that Henry, an often brilliant receiver who would be in his fourth pro season this year, had forfeited his career with the club. "His conduct can no longer be tolerated," Brown said.

Henry was suspended by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for the first half of last season for repeatedly violating the league's conduct policy. He also was suspended for two games in 2006.
"The Bengals tried for an extended period of time to support Chris and his potentially bright career," Brown said. "We had hoped to guide him toward an appropriate standard of personal responsibility that this community would support and that would allow him to play in the NFL. … But those efforts end today, as we move on with what is best for our team."

Henry's agent, Marvin Frazier, thanked the Bengals for their patience. "I just want to say that we're sorry this all happened, and we will continue to try to work to help Chris," Frazier said. "I do want to thank the Cincinnati Bengals -- Mike Brown, [coach] Marvin Lewis and everyone -- for all they have done to try to help this young man. Many of them have gone beyond the call of duty."

Under the NFL's tough new policy, Henry could face further suspensions even if he is not convicted of the latest charges. The Bengals were among the worst offenders in recent years, with 10 players arrested in a 14-month span from April 2006 and June 2007.

According to a complaint filed with authorities, Henry was identified by Meyer and a witness who claimed Henry punched Meyer on Monday, causing "visible injury." Henry then threw a beer bottle at Meyer's car, breaking the rear passenger window, according to the affidavit.
After an arrest warrant was issued, Henry surrendered to police Wednesday night.

Henry has had a string of problems with police. He was in court last week after being ticketed for driving with expired Kentucky license plates. He paid $149 in fines and court costs, according to the Municipal Court records.

He was ticketed a year ago for driving with a suspended license. Henry was arrested four times between December 2005 and June 2006. He was accused of possession of marijuana in northern Kentucky, carrying a concealed weapon in Florida, drunken driving in Ohio and providing alcohol to minors in northern Kentucky. He pleaded guilty to the marijuana possession and concealed weapon charges. In the drunken driving case, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of reckless vehicle operation. In the last case, he served two days in jail in 2006 after pleading guilty to a charge of letting minors drink alcohol in a hotel room he had rented.

Following his suspension, Henry caught 21 passes for 343 yards and two touchdowns last season. He had nine touchdown catches in 13 games in 2006, when he was suspended by the league for two games and benched for another by Lewis because of misconduct.

The 6-foot-4, 200-pound receiver was a third-round draft pick from West Virginia in 2005.
Disgruntled star receiver Chad Johnson was stunned when told of Henry's release.
"Are you sure? Man, they can't let him go. That dude is good. He's very, very good," Johnson said on 1050 ESPN New York.

"We need him. Those are not easy shoes to fill, regardless of the trouble he has gotten into in the past," Johnson said.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

ESPN - Bengals cut Henry, say they'll no longer tolerate his conduct - NFL

MWPRInsight: Crisis Situation in Sports...AGAIN!

Browns' Wright arrested on misdemeanor marijuana charge
ESPN.com

PEARLAND, Texas -- Cleveland Browns defensive back Kenny Wright was arrested Thursday after police said he led them on a quarter-mile foot chase that began in the parking lot of the police station.

The 30-year-old Wright faces a misdemeanor charge of unlawful restraint, a misdemeanor charge of evading arrest and a misdemeanor charge of possession of marijuana. He remained in the Pearland City Jail on Thursday night pending a bond hearing Friday.
Pearland police said officers were investigating a disturbance in the police station parking lot around 11:30 a.m. Thursday. When officers approached Wright, he took off running and was eventually caught in a nearby subdivision.

"We had people on scene pretty fast and I believe because of our quick response time and the mental and physical toughness of our officers to catch offenders, we were able to get him in custody quickly and safely," Sgt. Roy Castillo said.

Police said they found 1.875 ounces of marijuana in Wright's vehicle.
A jail official told The Associated Press he did not know if Wright has an attorney. The Browns said they would not comment on the arrest Thursday night.

If found guilty on the unlawful restraint charge, Wright faces up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. If found guilty on the other charges, Wright faces up to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine on each charge.

Wright, who attended Northwestern State in Louisiana, was a fourth-round pick in the 1999 draft by the Minnesota Vikings. The nine-year veteran also has played for Houston, Jacksonville and Washington. He has seven career interceptions.

Houston television station KRIV first reported the arrest.

Pearland is about 15 miles south of Houston.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

40 Years - Same Fight: What if the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had lived?

What if the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had lived? CNN.Com

(AP) -- The preacher in him would have continued speaking out against injustice, war and maybe even pop culture. He would likely not have run for president. He probably would have endured more harassment from J. Edgar Hoover.

Four decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. fell to an assassin's bullet, colleagues and biographers offer many answers to the question: What if he had lived?

For his children, however, the speculation is more personal. They know their lives would have turned out differently had they had their beloved father to guide and teach them.

Instead, history moves on, remaking the world in myriad ways. The nation has grappled with issues of race and inequity without the benefit of King's evolving wisdom. A generation has come of age celebrating him in a national holiday, like other figures of the frozen past.

But given the trajectory of his life -- from his appearance on the national scene during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955 to his death on a second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968 -- some of those closest to him have a good idea what King might be doing now, and where we might be as a country.

In the months before his death, King was speaking out against the growing U.S. involvement in Vietnam and was working with other civil rights leaders on a Poor People's Campaign, with a march on Washington scheduled for that May. He was in Memphis that spring day to support striking sanitation workers.

Were King alive today, the disciple of Mahatma Gandhi would most certainly be speaking out against the Iraq War, says King biographer David J. Garrow. However, citing the famous "Drum Major Instinct" sermon King delivered from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta just two months before his death, Garrow says people might be surprised to hear echoes of presidential candidate Barack Obama's controversial former pastor.

"God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war," King said of the fighting in Vietnam. "And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it."

While King didn't go as far as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in suggesting that God "damn America," he predicted that the almighty might punish this country for "our pride and our arrogance."
"And if you don't stop your reckless course," he imagined the deity admonishing, "I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."

Garrow and others feel comfortable saying that King would not have sought elective office.
In 1967, King was being courted by the "New Left" to make a third-party run for president on an anti-war ticket with the renowned pediatrician, Dr. Benjamin Spock. FBI wiretaps reveal that King gave serious thought to running, but ultimately decided that his role lay outside the political arena.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King and marched alongside him, doesn't think time would have changed his friend's mind.

"I think Martin was a preacher, and I doubt very much if he would have wanted to subject himself to the need to compromise and play certain games that are requisite to political candidacy," says Lowery. "I think he would have preferred to do what he did best, and that was point out to ALL candidates and ALL officials ... `Thus sayeth the Lord."'

Had he chosen that path, his enemies -- chief among them FBI Director Hoover -- would have laid bare potentially embarrassing details of King's personal life.

Then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized the wiretapping of King's home and offices in a campaign to ferret out communists. The secret recording campaign failed to prove that King was a communist, but it did provide evidence of the civil rights leader's extramarital affairs.

William C. Sullivan, head of domestic intelligence under Hoover, told a congressional committee that King was subjected to the same tactics used against Soviet agents and, "No holds were barred."

Hoover's office was unable to marginalize King with his supporters or cow him into silence with threats of exposure. But how might King have fared in the Internet age, when every peccadillo is exposed and every word parsed in a 24-hour news cycle?

The late Hosea Williams, one of King's chief lieutenants, once told Martin Luther King III that his father was "unstoppable" because he had conquered the two things that made men most vulnerable: the fear of death and the love of wealth.

Some, however, feel King's influence was on the wane and that at the time of his death he had already reached the zenith of his public career. He had "run out of things to do," the late Chauncey Eskridge, a King attorney, told Garrow.

"The painful truth is that in his last two months or so before he was killed, King was so exhausted -- emotionally, spiritually, physically -- that a lot of the people closest ... to him were really worried about his survival, his survival in the sense of would he have some sort of breakdown," Garrow says. "It would be expecting something truly superhuman, literally superhuman, for King to have continued the pace of life he had lived over those 12 years for another 12 years, never mind for another 20 or 40 years." Journalist, author and commentator Juan Williams wonders whether King would be able to connect in a meaningful way with today's youth.

Although he was just 39, the 1964 Nobel Peace laureate's insistence on nonviolence was bumping up against the burgeoning black power movement, says Williams, author of "Eyes on the Prize" and more recently "Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It."

"The big issue would be whether or not when he spoke out against the excesses of the rappers, for example, or when he spoke out on the high number of children born out of wedlock, whether or not he would be lumped in with the Bill Cosbys of the world ...," Williams says.

But he has no doubt King would be a force on the international stage.

"I don't think he'd be in the petty fray in the way that we think of some of these civil rights guys who are kind of ambulance chasers," says Williams. Instead, he sees an elder King as a man of "some standing, some stature, that people wait to hear from him... I think of Nelson Mandela in this way."
Lowery says that when King died, part of the nation's conscience died with him. Four young children lost something much more personal.

To Marty, Yolanda, Dexter and Bernice, the baby, Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't the icon or the dreamer. He was Daddy -- the man who smelled of Magic Shave and Aramis and chlorine from the YMCA pool where he taught his sons to swim, and of the long-stemmed green onions that somehow fell outside the prohibition against eating before the evening blessing.

One of Bernice King's fondest memories is of the ritual she and her father shared when he'd return from a trip, like the time he came home for her fifth birthday party on March 29, 1968 -- a day late because of a march in Memphis. She would jump into his arms for the "kissing game," in which each member of the family had a different spot on his face. Bernice's "designated spot" was his forehead.

Had her father lived, the 45-year-old minister is fairly certain she would be married and have children by now. But his graphic death and ponderous legacy, she fears, have made her a less than "viable candidate" for domestic bliss. Part of the problem is that her father set the bar so high. She remembers something her mother often said.

"She said, `I didn't marry a man. I married a mission,"' the daughter says. "So for me, a spouse is more than just a companion. It's someone to fulfill your destiny with. And I think in my case, because the destiny is so great, because you had a man whose life was cut short and there was some work that had to be completed, that you now have a responsibility to participate in, that makes it a little more difficult." Martin III, likewise, feels he wouldn't be having his first child at age 50 had his father not been killed. "I wasn't clear that I even wanted to bring a child into the world," he says.

Both siblings are quite certain, however, that their father's death did not determine their career paths. "I don't feel like I could have been exposed to what my father and mother were doing without being involved in this movement," says Martin King, president of the nonprofit group Realizing the Dream. Each year as the assassination anniversary approaches, legions flock to the Lorraine Motel, which now houses the National Civil Rights Museum. Among those who made the pilgrimage last week were two lions of the civil rights movement -- U.S. Rep. John Lewis and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

If King were alive today, Lewis has no doubt he would be speaking just as forcefully and with as much authority as ever about the issues that matter most to Americans, old and young.
"He would be the undisputed leader," the Georgia Democrat says. "Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years later would still be speaking out against poverty, hunger, against violence, against war."

Jackson, then 26 years old, was in the parking lot of the Lorraine that day, talking up to King when he was shot. During his recent visit, the aging activist stepped over a low wall meant to keep out ordinary tourists, climbed the stairs to the balcony where his mentor lay dying, and wept.

King would be 79 now, but Jackson feels his power to move would remain undiminished.
"He might not be leading the marches, but he would have set the frame of reference," says Jackson. "His voice would be a voice of great moral authority."

Of all the "might be's" and "what if's," MLK III feels sure of one thing. Had his father lived, the country would be closer to realizing the "beloved community" he'd envisioned.
Still, he feels his father's guiding force pulling us inexorably in that direction.

"From my perspective, his light still shines," he says. "His voice, his message, we're living every day. We're embracing more and more. We're not as close to it as I would like to see us, but we're still living it.

We're still moving toward it."

So, in that way, he lives.


What if the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had lived? - CNN.com

MWPRInsight: Crisis Situation (Yet ANOTHER example of the need for real PR counsel)

Titans' Adam 'Pacman' Jones Stills Wants to Make It Rain?
Posted Mar 26th 2008 8:00AM
by Quibian Salazar-Moreno
Filed under: Casually Obsessed

Yesterday Titans' cornerback Adam 'Pacman' Jones was on Dallas radio station KESN-FM with former Cowboy Michael Irvin, discussing his arrests since joining the NFL and being suspended for the entire 2007 season.

"I'm not sitting here telling you I don't own up to mistakes I've made," Jones told Irvin according to the Associated Press. "I accept everything, the punishment, everything that comes along with the bad decisions and bad choices I've made. In the end, I just pray to God I get a second chance."

Irvin interviewed Jones for almost three hours starting from his upbringing, to what he's been doing nowadays. But soon after the radio show ended, Pac Man's mug appeared on a flyer for a party on March 30 called "National Street League's Grey Goose Party 2008". The flyer leads one to believe that Jones will be hosting the party with a dude named Young Spoaty (can we retire "young" rappers already?).
But the kicker is the hook line on the flyer: "Party starts at 12am & we gon make it rain."

Last time Jones was making it rain, it didn't turn out too good. But according to Michael David Smith over at AOL Fanhouse, Jones will most likely not be at that party. Yeah, that wouldn't be a good look for someone who's trying to get a second chance.


Titans' Adam 'Pacman' Jones Stills Wants to Make It Rain? - Black Voices Blogs