Redskins Sean Taylor Avoids Jail
The NFL Washington safety bargains a 46-year sentence to small fine and community service.
The Washington Redskins' Sean Taylor is the latest professional athlete to plead his way out of prison. Now, he'll teach America's youth. Imagine this lesson.
Sean Taylor, the Washington Redskins safety, known more for his poor etiquette than his play on NFL football fields, has maneuvered his way into a tasty plea bargain that will keep him out of prison and put him into classrooms. Not as a student, studying anger management but as a teacher of America's youth.
This deal is sweeter than Taylor's multi-million dollar NFL contract. After slugging a citizen who took a spin on one of Taylor's ATVs and pulling a gun, to boot, Taylor faced 46 years in the big house. This was certainly palatable to me and most who know Taylor and his boorish behavior.
We are talking about a guy who has a two-year NFL career laced with penalties from the league for late hits, aggressive play and for spitting in the face of at least one player. And, I'm sure this one will knock you over; Taylor believes that with regard to the most recent case, he did nothing wrong. Shocking, I know.
Not to worry, though, his lawyer crafted a nifty little deal that has Taylor paying a few thousand dollars in fines and court costs and, get this, completing community service that includes appearing at 10 schools in Miami-Dade County to talk about, of all things, the importance of education.
Did you catch that? A 23-year-old millionaire thug, who didn't graduate from college, and has been fined more money than most students will ever make in a lifetime, will teach America's youth about the value of an education.
This is one of those times I really need a Genie in a bottle to grant me a few wishes. Sure, I might go for the usual wealth and happiness for myself, first, but I'd save just one wish to go back in time to the sentencing of good old Sean Taylor, and I would be the judge.
Let's see. Education? Sure, I'd levy a punishment for Taylor that includes education. I'd send this jerk to the school of hard knocks. Instead of the prep school he attended in Miami, I'd ship Taylor off to the toughest military academy on the planet. I'd place him under the care of the most cantankerous drill sergeant imaginable and I'd instruct that teacher to make it his highest priority to make Sean Taylor's life miserable; then, we'd ship Taylor off to Iraq for a six-month tour.
Now, I'd fast forward to the present, and let the battered, beaten and demeaned Taylor get his own teaching done. He can be the new social skills teacher at Wackenhut Santa Rosa Prison in New Mexico. I'd even create his first lesson plan, which would include a modeling activity of taking a punch at a couple of inmates, much as Taylor did in Miami - only this time he wouldn't have a gun, and the punchees at Wackenhut might not take too kindly to this lesson.
My sentence for Sean Taylor would indeed have some built-in education of its own. Once he served just a few months at military academy, a stint in Fallujah and a brief tenure as an educator at Wackenhut, I'd be happy to let Taylor rejoin his Washington Redskin teammates.
By this time, though, there might not be enough left of good old Sean Taylor to make many tackles.
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