Cliff wrote:Gotta agree with Jim. Though I don't know what the context was, and think there are very limited scenarios in which it could possibly be ok, I can imagine him saying something like; "What am I going to have to do to get you to focus and kick the ball where I tell you!? Put all of the gays on an island and nuke it so that your focus is on football instead!?"
Exactly. It could have just been something like "Let's just put all of the gays on an island and nuke it so we can get to work". Again, we don't know but Kluwe's description of events says he and other players were walking into a meeting and talking and "laughing over one of the recent articles I had written supporting same-sex marriage rights, and one of my teammates made a joking remark about me leading the Pride parade."
It was at that point that Priefer said whatever he said. maybe he was in a bad mood because he didn't feel they were sufficiently focused, or because they hadn't been practicing well or because he was sick of hearing Kluwe talk about his off-the-field activism when he felt he needed to be focused on improving his punting performance. There are all sorts of ways it could have gone down and it's not hard to imagine a frustrated, impatient coach saying something nasty to shut everybody up and get them to pay attention. I'm guessing that's a common occurrence in NFL meeting rooms.
Kluwe characterizes it as follows:
As we sat down in our chairs, Mike Priefer, in one of the meanest voices I can ever recall hearing, said: "We should round up all the gays, send them to an island, and then nuke it until it glows." The room grew intensely quiet, and none of the players said a word for the rest of the meeting. The atmosphere was decidedly tense. I had never had an interaction that hostile with any of my teammates on this issue—some didn't agree with me, but our conversations were always civil and respectful. Afterward, several told me that what Mike Priefer had said was "messed up."
Okay, was everybody quiet because of what Preifer said or because their coach had just made it clear they'd better shut up and pay attention? Was the atmosphere tense because they were being chewed out for some football-related reason? Was it all exactly what Kluwe implies it to be? We don't know but his characterization of events is just his view, not the only possible view, and we don't have any others yet.
Kluwe definitely, and understandably, described events in a manner that would make readers sympathetic toward him. For example:
"On Oct. 25, I had a poor game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Vikings brought in several punters for a workout to potentially replace me. I do not believe this was motivated by my speaking out on same-sex equality, though I do not know for sure.
During the special-teams meeting the following day, Mike Priefer berated me in an incredibly harsh tone the likes of which I've never heard a coach use about my abilities as a punter (and I have been berated before). The room went silent after he finished speaking, in a way that normally does not happen during meetings when someone is being called out. The Vikings kept me on as their punter."
Anyone who has ever been present when someone really gets mad and chews out another person knows it's not unusual for a scene like that to be followed by uncomfortable silence. Was Priefer's tone "incredibly harsh" in a way that was excessive, as Kluwe implies, or did it seem that way to him because he was the target of his coach's ire? It would be interesting to hear how the other players present would describe the scene.
All of the above should further illustrate the importance of context and language in this entire case.
