Sticks and Stones

Anthony David came out with a song in the middle of last year entitled "Words" on the album titled Acey Duecy. It was a very meaningful song featuring India Arie and the title of the song brings up a familiar saying. "Sticks and Stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me". That is true to some but false to the majority of the public.

A lot of famous athletes and politicians have been really getting underneath the skin of others.

In the wake of the Serena Williams profanity-laced tirade against a line judge, these topics of words have come across my mind. Threats in our society are taken very serious and she is fortunate that the lines judge has not pressed any charges against the 5-time winner at the U.S. Open. The emotions that came from Williams were genuine but the words that came out were as well. With a break in the communication, penality, she ultimately lost the match. An apology was issued the next day. She knew that this would affect her personally as well as financially.

The District Attorney recently dropped the charges against San Diego Chargers' pro-bowl linebacker Shawne Merriman. Before those charges were dropped, the public formed an opinion from the "he say, she say" aspect of the case. His image, already fragile, took another hit and his future with the team was in jeopardy as well as a possible suspension from the NFL commissioner hanging over his head. Merriman has been cleared of these charges, but the damage has already been done.

And finally we get to one Mr. Michael Jeffrey Jordan. "His Airness" was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame recently. Of course it was going to happen sooner or later but with his speech, he has seemed to ruffle a lot people's feathers with his acceptance speech. He brought up Bryon Russell, who he personally crucified on multiple occasions. Russell has actually called out Jordan in the wake of his comments during his induction. A bloggers and writers across America also felt that his comments were petty.

There is potency in words and we have seen that potency in numerous cases when it comes to sports. Even in politics, the South Carolina Senator called President Barack Obama a liar last week in an address to health care. He later apologized but former president Jimmy Carter, in function at Emory University earlier this week, stated that the outburst made by the senator was a result of racism.

Words have their ways of empowerment. They also have there ways of tearing down something that took years to build. Words should be chosen wisely and used carefully. But the reality of this happening is that the majority of the time they won't be.

Will This Be Merriman's last Hoorah?

The only way that Merriman stays a San Diego Charger after this season is that he takes a tremendous paycut. Then again the Chargers could win this years' Super Bowl and he would not have to take less.

A.J. Smith is growing tired of Merriman ending up in these situations where he is bringing negative publicity to the San Diego franchise. The partying that he was doing outside of his rehabilitation of his injury was frustrating to the G.M.

With Merriman missing all but two games last season, we would think that he would probably use better jugdement. Although he is still fairly a young man, he cannot allow himself to be in situations such as this one.

This is also a contract year for For the star outside linebacker. He is a special player on this team, but the extra curricular activities may be overshadowing his first three seasons with the organization.

Larry English was also there first selection this past April. English played phenomonally at Pittsburgh University and was drafted in the middle of the first round. It can be aid that he will be the successor of Merriman if things do not go the defenses' way this season.

Basically Merriman needs to stay out of the limelight and stick to football for the rest of the season. If he does not, this could be a divorce waiting to happen.