I have never really known what to make of the term 'bullying'.
There are obviously definitions you can point to and cases where bullying is absolutely what is going on. Then, there is the grey-area between playful banter and subjecting someone to bullying.
Some might say that the United States is slowly becoming too soft of a country, and that bullying is an overused term used when someone's feelings are hurt.
To a certain degree I agree with that sentiment, but to say that it applies to the shocking reports coming out of the Miami Dolphins locker room between offensive-linemen Jonathon Martin and Richie Incognito would make you downright ignorant.
To add insult to injury, the teammates that sat idly by while this harassment was going on have chosen to take the side of the aggressor, Incognito.
Growing up we all knew someone that who could only derive pleasure from making others feel negatively about themselves. Most of these people "peaked" during that time in their life and now probably look back on the days when they could get away with anything as their glory days.
In this case, that playground bully got really big, to the tune of 6-foot-3-inches and 320 pounds. This has helped his pattern of abuse carry on longer with every extra pound he was able to throw around.
Incognito was harassing a teammate: the person you are supposed to trust more than anyone, and this abuse was mild by any means. A transcript from one of the voicemails Incognito left Martin reads:
"Hey, wassup, you half n***** piece of sh*t. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. [I want to] sh*t in your f*cking mouth. [I'm going to] slap your f*cking mouth. [I'm going to] slap your real mother across the face [laughter]. F*ck you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you."
If that were addressed to me, I would not consider the speaker to be someone who had my back, would you? There are very few reasonable explanations for that kind of tirade that do not make Incognito out to be evil. Try to find one, I dare you.
I will admit that my last experience with organized football was in fourth grade. I am not as in tune with the culture inside a football locker room as someone with more experience playing the sport.
It is still difficult for me to imagine how this sort of behavior is permissible between teammates. Yes, I understand that football is a brutal sport, and the NFL is a league for men willing to put up with the highest levels of brutality, but using those sort of racial slurs towards a teammate and threatening to kill him, I cannot believe that that fosters camaraderie.
The most disturbing part of the whole situation has to be the way in which Martin's teammates responded to questions about the supposed bullying. Even the second-year quarterback, Ryan Tannehill blew off the supposed "bullying and hazing" as Martin having soft-skin. I find this funny, because if a 320-pound potential sociopath ended a voicemail to me with, "I'll kill you," I would probably take it pretty seriously.
If a player cannot stand up and protect a teammate from bullying in the NFL, the coaching staff has to step in.
There is absolutely no reason this issue should have reached the public, but because of poor leadership in the locker room, it did. The next step in this saga is to dump Incognito and reexamine the culture in your locker room.
The ball is in your court, Dolphins.
-- Small is a senior history and political science double major from Zionsville, Ind.