Goodell Must Be Suspended; Cass Fired
By Ken Reed
In the last month or so, Roger Goodell has made about every mistake a leader can make. Confidence in his organization, the National Football League, has never been lower.
Goodell’s latest misstep was initiating a badly tainted “investigation” into the Ray Rice situation. The goal of any Rice investigation needs to be finding answers to the following questions: What did the NFL and Goodell know and when did they know it regarding the Ray Rice knockout punch of his fiancee inside the Atlantic City casino elevator?
Unfortunately, we may never know the complete truth since Goodell’s appointed “independent” investigator, Robert Mueller, is an NFL insider. Mueller and Baltimore Ravens’ (Rice’s former team) president Dick Cass once worked at the same law firm. Mueller’s law firm has done work for the NFL in the past, including negotiating television deals. Cass worked at this law firm for more than 30 years. How credible can this investigation be?
Meanwhile, ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” has recently exposed Cass for improperly directing the Rice investigation — at the least — or trying to cover up the video of Rice’s infamous elevator punch, at the worst.
It appears Goodell was doing a favor for Cass and Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti when he initially only suspended Rice for two games for the ugly Atlantic City incident.
As things stand today, it’s clear that Goodell completely blew the Rice situation and he has also shown an incredible lack of leadership in the Adrian Peterson domestic violence case.
The public has lost all trust in Goodell, the leader of America’s most popular cultural institution. He should resign. But if he doesn’t resign soon, the NFL owners should suspend him indefinitely.
Cass, meanwhile, should be fired immediately for his unethical actions in regard to the Rice video.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world, with over 150 camps in 30+ U.S. states and Canada. We discuss problems in youth sports today, including single sport specialization, the growing gap between the “haves” and “have-nots,” the high drop-out rate in competitive sports, and the growing mental health challenges young athletes are dealing with today.
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Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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