Hines Ward is speaking out about the latest awful decision by running back Rashard Mendenhall, who got in hot water over tweets sent out following the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
While the running back has said he’s sorry for offending people by the tweets, it wasn’t enough to save his sponsorship with Champion, who dumped him.
“Everybody’s entitled to their opinion,” Ward said to ESPN. “But that wasn’t a good opinion.”
The Steelers all-time leading wide out says that while you can have your own opinion, a lot of times it’s better to keep those opinions to yourself.
“If that’s your opinion leave it as your opinion,” Ward said. “When you tweet that out there, you have to deal with the backlashes that come with that. You put everybody out there because everywhere we go we get asked questions about the comments you made. When you tweet like that, you’ve got to be careful. I’m not a big tweeter because sometimes your emotions get caught up, you speak your mind and it’s not always the best thing to say.”
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DrGeorge
May 12, 2011 at 9:01 am
Mendenhall’s point was that rejoicing over Bin Laden’s death was inconsistent with Christ’s teachings, a point made more coherently by numerous Christian ministers and other moralists. Unfortunately, Mendy doesn’t write well enough to say precisely what he means, and he inadvertently made some preposterous remarks about 9-11 in the heat of the moment.
Hines Ward has it right. Celebrities should not attempt public statements in the heat of the moment, when their ire exceeds their reason or their ability to communicate. Once you go public, the statement becomes fair game for the media and everyone else. And it stays out there for a long time. Mendy’s comments were no worse than millions of others on blog sites, but his words became news because he is the Steelers starting running back. Closer scrutiny is the price of fame. Mendy learned that lesson the hard way.
Pastor Thom Gardner
May 12, 2011 at 2:01 pm
It is always good to step back a bit a put a little “grace space” between what we think and what we say whether or not we are using Twitter or social media. Whatever is true will wait 24 hours while we think. RM is a very good football player but not yet much of a philosopher or social annalist. Let’s be patient. He is like 24 years old. What did you say when you were 24? I’m glad there was such thing as Twitter around when I was that age to record my “social genius” for posterity.
Matt Loede
May 13, 2011 at 8:00 am
Great point Pastor, as it says in James 1:19 “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” Mendy should really think things through before throwing them out there on Twitter.