Not the Right Lesson to Learn

You just know his story was going to end badly, this waste of a human soul.  I won't say it was entirely his fault.  He did have some negative reinforcement and counterproductive enabling along the way.  But at the end of the day it was still his decision, still his own doing.

He attended Milwaukee Trade and Technical High School in the '90s.  Notice I said he "attended" Tech.  While he was on Tech's rolls as a student, he did not epitomize the accepted usage of the word.  No, this argument for post-partum abortion was not in school to study.  He was in school to play football.

And he was good.  Tech was a state powerhouse in all three major sports--basketball, baseball and football--and he was a star.  The problem was that because he was a star, he felt entitled.  He figured if he showed up to class often enough and put forth minimal, token effort, he should be given the grades he needed to maintain his eligibility.  After all, that was a hero's due.

Although he grudgingly submitted to the most trivial of requirements, he felt no obligation to respect those who imposed them upon him.  He referred to female staff as "skank 'ho's" and intimidated male teachers who even looked to him like they might not be inclined to kowtow to his sports worthiness.

Came the day when he ran up against a teacher who naively thought the purpose of high school was education, not preparation for a livelihood as a jock, and who, in the absence of any shred of academic accomplishment, any evidence of scholarship, subsequently failed him.  This flatlined a GPA that was already barely perceptible on the life support monitor, and he lost his eligibility to play.

Now I don't know who cried to the principal; the player, his coach, or both.  I do know, though, that all of a sudden the player's transcripts reflected his assignment as a monitor during the period of the class he had flunked, and that all school records were purged of the fact that he had even enrolled in that class to begin with.  His GPA was thus restored to the level required of eligibility, and he was back on the gridiron before you could say Vince Lombardi.

He eventually graduated high school and enrolled at University of Wisconsin.  He rushed for 1,681 yards as a running back in his junior year, after which he left school to enter the NFL draft.

He was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings with the 27th pick in 2001.  The following year he rushed for 1,296 yards and was selected to the Pro Bowl.  He was on five different teams over his ten-year career and finished up in 2010 with the Oakland Raiders.

Writing in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Don Walker reported that on April 18, 2012, 33-year-old Michael Bennett allegedly attempted to obtain a $200,000 loan using as collateral a bank statement which falsely showed a balance of approximately $9 million.  The account balance was actually zero and, in fact, had never had any money in it.  He was charged in a federal complaint on May 1 with wire fraud.

Sharing responsibility for the moral ambiguity possessed by Bennett that allowed him to imagine it was okay for him to perpetrate a fraud in this fashion has to be the principal who reinforced his belief that he was special, and that the rules applicable to the rest of us, the common folk, the hoi polloi, do not apply to him.

I knew the principal personally.  I can tell you with neither doubt nor hesitation that what she did for him she didn't do for him, or even for his coach.  She did it for her own selfish aggrandizement.  You see, the farther Tech's football team advanced in the state, the brighter the spotlight on her.

Do you suppose that if Bennett, whom she started down the road to perdition under the guise of salvaging his career, ends up convicted and in the slam she will go visit him?  I don't.  Trust me--she'll deny even remembering his name.