Brian Dawkins, Spherical Class

by Brian (DaBolts) on Apr 6, 2009 6:00 AM PDT Comment 2 comments

Brian Dawkins showed some egregious judgment by signing with the Denver Broncos, but despite that tragic myopia, he has class leaking out of every orifice. This is a player that may be losing a step, but he sure isn't missing an instinct for making things right. No matter what angle you peer at this Dawkins comes out looking good; that's spherical class.

A game day employee of the Philadelphia Eagles was found to have expressed dismay that the Eagles let Dawkins go. That would have been that; but for the ham handed Eagles management who immediately fired Dan Leone. Leone posted: "Dan is ******* devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver...Dam Eagles are Retarded." Now granted it was probably wrong of him to spell damn without an 'n', but firing a man for an outburst like this is just wretched excess.

Leone deleted the offending entry but was still fired by phone four days later. He said, "I shouldn't have put it up there, I was ticked off, and I let my emotions go, but I didn't offend any one person or target a specific individual. I was just upset that we lost such a great guy. Dawkins was one of my favorite players. I made a mistake." That should have ended the incident.

When Dawkins heard the story he stepped in and made sure Leone got his tickets to the Denver/Philly game. All good gestures can be said to be self-promotion, but Dawkins could have easily just let this episode slide. It's the perfect response because not only does the part time worker get to see his favorite player; it's going to be a huge story that gets huge play in all the media. Leone has gotten tremendous attention from the media; it would be amazing if somebody didn't offer him a job. Meanwhile the Eagles management looks like paranoid autocrats foolish, not only for firing Leone, but also for letting Brian Dawkins go.

Dawkins was quoted as saying: "Obviously, [Leone] made a decision and out of emotion said something. He was one of probably thousands and thousands of Eagles fans who felt that way. That didn't surprise me, that someone said that on their Facebook. It did surprise me that he was let go, though. That really did surprise me. I felt it would be a good thing, to reach out to that individual and just let him know how much I appreciate it.'' Philadelphia is going to reap both a firestorm of bad publicity; you have to wonder who makes these decisions.

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I don't know

I think if you criticize you employer in a public forum, you should expect consequences. I think too many people think that facebook and blogs are “private” forums where they can be free to say what they want without consequences, like some sort of new millennium diary. If you criticize your employer and you are not a critical employee, you can expect to be let go. And let’s face it, this guy worked 10 days a year for the eagles, so its not like he was some sort of critical cog. He was totally replaceable. And he was replaced. He essentially gave up his job for 15 minutes of fame. All things considered, it was probably worth it. I assume he has a real job and doesn’t rely on his 10 days of employment per year with the eagles to put a roof over his head.

On a related note, I think this perceived anonymity is what causes a lot of the strife on message boards and the like. People are much more willing to take pot shots when they think no one knows who they are. It’s probably a small factor in keeping the comments sections here relatively civil. Even though everyone has pseudonyms, there are no truly anonymous postings.

by Stephen (shaynes41) on Apr 6, 2009 8:06 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs