We all know how the media loves its blond, white, female victims and its white, female victims of other hair-colors. Why not mix it up a little bit and add former high school football players who have fallen from glory to the new victim-darling list?
On first look, this Austin American-Statesman story—-“Man, 73, accused of aiming pistol at slower golfers”—-is hardly newsworthy. Elderly pistol-packers commit second-degree felonies while critiquing the the playing speed of local golfers all the time in Texas. But just wait until you get to the subhead: “Former Westlake High football player called 911 after gun was pointed at him, police say.”
Yeah yeah, Man, 73, “pulled out a .25-caliber Browning handgun loaded with hollow-point bullets,” pointed it at three men, and explained that he was “morally obligated to destroy” them. Tell me more about the kid who used to play ball at Westlake High!
No shit, the gun was pointed at Matt Nader, who could not be reached for comment on this story? You remember Nader—-lineman, drafted by the University of Texas, could have made it all the way to the pros if he hadn’t dramatically lost it all in that College Station game back in ’06, when he “collapsed on the sidelines from cardiac arrest.” Even if you weren’t there when “Nader’s life was saved using an automated external defibrillator, and doctors later learned that he had a heart condition that ended his football career,” you tell the story like you were.
I wonder whatever happened to that guy. Hey, looks like “UT honored his scholarship, and he’s now a student and student-assistant coach for the Longhorns.” I’m really glad things worked out for that guy, and the two other men who happened to end up on the wrong side of an elderly man’s pistol over the weekend.
I guess now I’m ready to slog through the 250 words of the story that actually describe that moral obligation that moved the impatient elderly man to track down three guys on a golf course and threaten to murder them. Man, that Nader was a good kid. And a hell of a lineman.
Photo by rdesai