Showing posts with label professional football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label professional football. Show all posts

Monday, July 7, 2008

No sympathy for Bill Maas: Comments on the The Star Article


In Sunday's Sports section there was an article written about the pitiful life of Bill Maas. The interview was offered by Maas for the opportunity to come clean to the public and try to begin the process of rebuilding something of his public career. It was pathetic and sad.


You can link to Sam Mellinger's story from The Kansas City Star here: http://www.kansascity.com/666/story/693351.html

I appreciate how Mellinger didn't write this glowing "Give Bill another chance" piece. Mellinger did a nice job of taking the opportunity given him and I think pretty fairly portrayed the life and times of a spoiled, asshole athlete. If you read between the lines I think it was fair to say Bill Maas didn't get the sympathic hearing from the reporter for which he hoped. I think Bill Maas probably thought given the opportunity he could charm the reporter and get a nice article out of the deal that would make people actually feel sorry for him. WRONG.

Even before this incident (giving up my bias here) most of Kansas City has known Bill Maas to be an arrogant, spoiled, asshole athlete even back to his playing days.....before his uh, brain injuries. I had heard first hand stories about how he like to smack the women in his life around. Battering women is sooooo manly isn't it? I wonder how Frankie from the old KY102 felt about the story? He acted like as an athlete he was above everyone else. In short, he didn't have a good reputation around town even when he was an All-Pro for the Chiefs. Bill Maas suggests in the article that his problems, drug abuse, depression, etc is a result of head injuries from playing football. Still blaming someone or something else for your behavior eh Billy? See, isn't that typical? Bill needs to take responsibility for his actions and show what he is doing NOW to make it right. It is conspicuous that statements of responsibility and notation of his current acts of humanity are lacking in the article. In his days at 810 WHB and later 610 the buzz wasn't much better. On the radio he was often a hypocrite chiding athletes for their behavior while his was none better. Listening to him on the radio repulsed me. I never understood what Fox saw in him as an announcer. I never thought he was very good in that role and often received criticism from fans for how he worked a game. He started off apparently being well liked by fans and critics alike but the last few years he was on the air his performance weakened (I wonder why Mr. Coke Guy????) and Fox had already made the decision to not bring him back to the booth before the latest arrest and cut all ties in the aftermath saying he would have no role at Fox Sports moving forward.

So, the article reports how Bill Maas is now just working on his rental properties, staying out of trouble and how he helped a couple charities BACK when he was playing. How about doing something now to make amends for the wrongs of the past. To me that shows regret and the real desire to be forgiven and demonstrates real change. How about helping at a women's shelter? Or how about people with mental illness that could use a hand up? Show us some of that.....that stuff where you practice doing the right thing even when nobody else is watching for awhile and then we think about giving you another chance. Nope......Bill is busy with his rental properties and he is so into it he doesn't even know how many he has........the arrogance is still there........he has so much property you'd have to ask his accountant how many he has......as he states in the article.

I read closely and the article talks about how he wants his broadcasting career back or just back in the easy life around professional football. He calls out the Chiefs for their poor drafting and suggests that he could help by looking at some film. How about volunteer coaching with heavy supervision at some KCMO schools or a rural Missouri or Kansas JUCO? How about taking that opportunity to tell those kids that if you do what he did you'll have big regrets? How about showing up there everyday, on time, with a great attitude and teaching some kids how to dominate on the defensive line? How about if you show us that and then we'll think about giving you another chance at some of the other things.

Bill Maas, from what I read on Sunday you might have stepped away from the drugs, whores, the fast life but in your head and your heart you haven't changed. You've been clean for about a year now but you've had to be or you'd be headed to jail. At least you seem to be smart enough to stay of jail. You are still the arrogant, asshole athlete who misses the privledges of your God given gifts. You wasted those gifts and essentially spit in God's face by not being thankful for them and not treasuring them and using them appropriately. You need to do more before you come back and ask us for another chance.