Patrick Tillman

Patrick Tillman of the Arizona Cardinals

Absolutely tired of hearing people lobby for Pat Tillman to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I appreciate i’m not going to make myself lots of friends here today but I simply can’t quite get why Americans always seem to mix things up whenever ‘US troops’ are involed in any debate, conversation, you name it. Pat Tillman was a marginally good football player who decided to prematurely end his professionnal football career to go in the Army and serve his country after the notorious events of 9/11. This is an act of bravoure, and he got the US Army medals and honours to recognize his military heroism during the war. This is where it should end. But apparently, people think he is also deserving for the Hall of Fame, the ‘Pro Football Hall of Fame” that is. I’m asking, why is that? I think if we go on inducting Pat Tillman for his ‘off the field heroics”, then we ought to immediately remove the likes of OJ Simpson and Lawrence Taylor for their ‘off the field crimes”. HOF voters are told to solely focus over the ‘on the field’ actions of the former players and I would agree that this is how things should be done in Canton, most people do agree as well. Why then in the case of Tillman do people want to make an exception and induct a player who had very moderate success on a team (the Cardinals), the laughingstock of the league at that time. It just doesn’t make any sense at all to mix things up, for the sake of patriotism only. I think we should leave Tillman’s story to what it is: a professoinal athlete who decided to leave the sport, join the forces and serve his country abroad. Already an amazing story in itself.