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Former Georgia and then Alabama football player Johnathan Taylor, all 6’4″ of him, recently appeared in court regarding charges of domestic violence and criminal mischief. That, in and of itself is where a horrific story should end.
But it doesn’t.
Taylor was arrested just over a week ago when his girlfriend alleged that he assaulted her, which would have been a staggering decision for Taylor to make considering his past, which will see an arraignment in Georgia next week regarding aggravated assault.
When news broke, sports media pounced. Whether it was slaying Nick Saban for allowing him to even have a chance at Alabama to the scalding takes about how the NCAA overlooks allowing players with pasts to get second chances versus trying to make money on the side, everyone had an immediate reaction.
The problem is, sports isn’t necessarily real life, and real life includes things like pausing, waiting for a situation to resolve itself, and then potentially having a fully informed viewpoint on it.
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Shortly after Taylor was dismissed from Alabama, the woman who accused Taylor of the violence admitted to police that she fabricated the story to get back at Taylor for being unfaithful in their relationship. Sure enough, the snark continued, like Alabama paid her off to cop to making it up in exchange for something, never mind the fact that Taylor had already been dismissed from the university without potential for re-admittance.
He was at Alabama on a zero-tolerance policy, so when Saban got the call he was in the news, there probably wasn’t any reason to go further with it and just dismiss him. The media skewered Saban, and maybe for good reasons … or maybe not … who knows. Or, maybe Saban took a shot at a guy who could play and it all went wrong.
Either way, the police charged the woman with false reporting, and they wouldn’t do that if it was revisionist history made up to protect a player who … again … was already dismissed. Alabama would gain nothing by him being innocent, publicly or otherwise.
Nobody knows the conversation had between player and coach, but no matter what the end result is, the Crimson Tide football program didn’t need the headache of having to spin it if it was false. Also, though, no one knows what kinds of conversations Taylor and Saban had prior to admitting him into Alabama, and maybe the coaching staff genuinely thought this was a remorseful person who deserved a second chance.
After all, there probably are worse things than giving people chances in life.
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When it comes to reality-land, talent always gets extra chances, like it or not, right or wrong. The guy that consistently meets his sales quota has a little longer rope than the guy who does everything right when he’s away from the office but can’t sell a life raft to a drowning man at sea.
Yet, real life can’t be reduced to the scalding hot takes that can apply to sporting events. Things like this require proof and facts, things not of sports media ilk. Yeah, at the outset, this looked pretty terrible … but the immediate story wasn’t the full thing. Whereas in talking about how Coach X shouldn’t have played Player Y in certain situations and beating it to death after a game, stuff like this deserves as much time as it can get to see that the facts are gathered and are correct.
This isn’t to let Taylor off the hook. The “zero-tolerance” portion of it is the one where even putting yourself in a situation where someone would want to undercut you means you’re out on your backside. This is what Taylor was unable to avoid, however it ends up turning out.
Whether you think certain crimes should mean your chances to play major college sports are out and gone, that’s fine, but before making sweeping judgements on anything, all of the facts should be gathered.
It doesn’t mean Taylor would still be at Alabama had a full vetting process been completed, but the school was backed into a corner once he popped up on the news. There was a strongly-felt need on the part of Alabama to act quick, fast, and in a hurry. That’s the danger of the media’s relative strength. Act now or get hammered. Figure out the facts later.
As for all those facts, they’re going to be developing for a long time, adding layers that probably will determine where Taylor’s life goes from here on the field and, more importantly, off it. He entered no plea and sought a continuance.
The danger of immediately reporting on anything is that you’re making a meal with half the ingredients. You’re assuming that what you don’t have, someone else is bringing to the party later. The reality is, sometimes they don’t, and you’re left with a lousy spread lacking a full compliment needed to make a full meal.
In the case of Johnathan Taylor, yeah, a lot of folks completely forgot the main course.
