April06

Pinky and the Lame

Has something ever happened that offended you? Probably so. Has something ever happened and you were so offeneded that you mentioned it to someone? Eh... maybe. But has something ever happened, and it made you and your organization so upset, that you made phone calls to the people in charge and said they were being insensitive?

That's what happened this week when the new head defensive coach at the University of Arkansas made the decision to make loafing defensive players where pink jerseys to make them stand out. No one wants to be pointed at in football practice and examples needed to be made. But for heaven's sake guys... now you've got the breast cancer community upset. Didn't you know that they have the color pink copyrighted and trademarked?

Wait... WHAT!?! They're upset that you're WEARING PINK??? This is a joke, right?

Please understand that I'm not trying to offend:

• Anyone diagnosed with breast cancer
• Anyone who has survived breast cancer
• Anyone that has lost someone to breast cancer
• Anyone that is suffering along with a breast cancer victim
• Anyone associated with Komen or Race for the Cure
• Anyone that is aware of breast cancer and donates to help find a cure (myself included)
• Anyone who makes pink ribbons

Basically, I'm not trying to offend anyone that is anyone when I ask, "Since when did wearing pink automatically mean that we're offending breast cancer survivors?"

Coach Nutt and his staff have already made the decision to switch to a different color, which is nice. But I implore them to NOT choose the following colors:

• Yellow – First off, yellow means "cowardly," that would just be plain silly... and secondly, we don't want to offend people supporting our troops (also, please don't make them wear LIVESTRONG bracelets, you don't want MORE cancer awareness people on your backs)
• Red – This is usually a color of anger and we don't want to make the already-pissed off players more upset, nor do we want to offend AIDS awareness folk
• Blue – We don't want sad football players and then there's colon cancer awareness, a definite no-no
• Green – Enviousness aaaaaaaand the Irish, 'nuff said
• Polkadots – We don't want to offend horse jockeys OR previous Best Climbers
• Forget this... just take a look at this list
• Or better yet, this list

Sorry Coach, looks like your players are going to be shirtless during practice, and that could be more humiliating than any color they could wear.

And if breast cancer survivors are pissed about football jerseys, I'd hate to see what they had to say about this and this. And just WHAT is the target on the chest supposed to insinuate? Tasteless.

+ original post date: April 6, 2005 02:45 PM
+ categories: WTF