What Kellen Winslow II SHOULD have said about Pat Tillman

San Francisco Examiner ^ | April 26, 2004 | Bob Frantz

[dead]

What do Kellen Winslow and Eli Manning have to do with Pat Tillman?

I mean, they both play the same game Tillman played (before he bravely went to war for his country), but I don't see any other connection.

[motzman]

Winslow's father is a raging Marxist.

[Josh in PA]

If I remember correctly, Winslow compared that football game to "war" and it drew some fire.

[NittanyLion]

It seems to me that such grandstanding would be wholly inappropriate. Tillman made his choice, it stands as is, and we certainly don't need a bunch of people running around weepy-eyes over his death. Frankly, I suspect the scenario proposed here is exactly the opposite of what Tillman would want.

[danneskjold]

Winslow is an "f'ing soldier..."

[LibWhacker]

This is the problem with not having a draft: Good patriotic American boys die, and their numbers dwindle . . . while DU scum skate, and their numbers grow.

[MEG33]

I read this before realizing it was what should have been said.The writer gets it.

God bless our armed forces and their loved ones who wait at home.

[dfwgator]

I would have no problem with Winslow making that speech, privately, off-camera to a group of servicemen.

[Darth Reagan]

Thanks for posting that. I think the context shows clearly why Manning and Winslow were singled out.

[BillyCrockett]

I said it yesterday too. Mr Tillman is going to affect millions in a positive way. He'd have been just another football player if he hadn't made his choice to leave the NFL and join the US Army Rangers. Now, through his untimely death in this war on terror, he's making every single soldier remember why they are there. Heroes all.

[johnfrink]

Exactly. Tillman refused to give interviews about serving in the Army, and it's slightly ironic that everyone is now going around talking about all kinds of public tributes to the guy, when the evidence seems to show that public adulation is the last thing Tillman would want.

IMO, that's the true mark of a hero.

[dead]

Oh, alright. I hadn't heard that.

Still seems very weird to drag him into Tillman's death. Every stupid sports reporter since the turn of the century has done that.

[onedoug]

I think it's two Americans recognizing another's true sacrifice for America.

[wtc911]

What you're seeing is posturing by late-comers. Many of us have for years decried the use of the words battle, war, combat, soldier, hero, etc in reference to sports. During the soft decades people really believed the hype. Pat Tillman has shown them (us) all that the soft years are over. These writers are just beginning to get it. Manning Jr. and Winslow Jr. are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[johnfrink]

His father also made a big deal about how his son would only go to college and play for a black coach (cause a white coach couldn't understand him), and then of course he went to Miami and worked with a white coach. Ah well.

[glock rocks]

yes.

[LiteKeeper]

SPOTREP - A moment of humanity! Congratulations - sanity prevailed for at least a few moments.

[nuffsenuff]

Ok.

So as someone who did not see what he actually said, what did he say on Saturday?

[dead]

Neither of them said these things. The reporter is claiming that they should have said these things.

I don't know why he doesn't just say them himself, rather than chastising two other people for not speaking his thoughts for him.