Laremy Tunsil had the most difficult first night of the NFL draft (with Johnny Manziel in second) after his Twitter and Instagram accounts were hacked.
Twitter showed him smoking what appeared to be marijuana out of a gas-mask bong. Instagram showed conversations that appeared to happen via text with him and John Miller, a member of the Ole Miss athletic department. In them, Tunsil asks for money to help pay his mother’s bills and his own rent.
Tunsil, having gone through an unfathomable swing in which he lost around $10 million dollars by sliding out of the top 10 (if not top 5) before being selected at No. 13 by the Miami Dolphins, admitted to taking money while in school during a brief, painful press conference.
This is an NCAA violation. Players can’t be paid. They’re now able to receive a stipend to cover the full cost of attendance, but that amounts to around $5,000 at Ole Miss.
Of course Tunsil more than earned the extra he sought: he allowed two sacks in three years at an SEC school where the head coach makes $4.3 million a year and the assistants earn another $3 million. The Rebels’ football program generated $54 million in revenue in 2014-15.
The most jarring part of the night was not the revelation that college kids smoke weed and film themselves, or that those from poor broken families often need money and see fit to ask for a small piece of the largesse that surrounds them. It was, instead, how calmly Tunsil dealt with this. How open he was. Yes, his camp tried to say the video was years old, but that was about as far as the cover-up attempt went.
(Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports)
Faced with not one but two scandals on what should have been the best night of his life, Tunsil shrugged. Yes, he smoked weed in college. Yes, he thought he should be entitled to more of the money he helped generate. Now let’s go get that Super Bowl.
Tunsil tried to sound reticent and said he was sorry. He said he had made mistakes. But his demeanor made it clear: He did not regret what he had done. Nor should he. I wonder how many other players picked last night would do the same if suddenly confronted with their supposed sins? How many of them would rightly say the code they’re asked to abide by is unfair?
Amateurism has been a sham from the beginning, but it’s taken a long time for the players to become enlightened. They have to play by the rules if they want to reach draft night, and they have to appear to stay in line if they want to avoid being given the “character concern” label.
With every Cardale Jones outburst or pithy tweet from Eli Apple’s mom or Tunsil tossing aside the indignation over some payments that are hardly unusual and completely fair, though, we get closer to the day that the system falls apart and is replaced by one that more fairly compensates its laborers.
