Roethlisberger: "He was raised with old-fashioned, middle-America values."

Arrogant jocks who think they're God's gift to the world and have more money than common sense are found in every corner of the USA, parts of Canada and various other nations as well.

 

Your wife reads it, Double Down? Fess up, it's okay.

Sometimes they actually even say that line about not treating when they talk to body language experts, which is enjoyable.

As for the column, yeah, ridiculous, and I say that a native of middle-America. I grew up in rinky dink Minnesota but live in NYC and love both places, but I know stereotypes that people have for all areas of the country are often wrong. People, with some obvious regional quirks (no one here knows what a hot dish is, but that doesn't mean they weren't raised right), are the same everywhere. Jerks and criminals are everywhere, but so are good people, whether they're god-fearing Midwesterners or atheist New Yorkers or god-fearing New Yorkers and atheist Midwesterners.

 

If you don't think young men in the heartland value the opportunity to bed drunken women, you're crazy.

 

or sheep

 

I remember before he was drafted hearing over and over again from scouts what a great kid Roethlisberger was and how he didn't have the ego and the sense that the world was owed to him that the guys from the bigger schools have.

I get the sense he's become a douche since he entered the league. Lord knows he won't be the first player to enter the NFL as a great guy and turn into a prick.

Klis is a great beat writer, but that column misses the mark.

 

While I agree the premise of the column is silly, aren't you guilty here of the same thing you're railing against? This reads to me as "What really bothers me about the Middle-American values crap is that those people aren't even as good as the rest of us."

 

I remember those statements as well and how he was such a great guy. Remember the story of him driving his sister to the prom? I wonder about that now.

 

Like ... who drove her back from the prom.

 

No, he is cooked.

He has problems, and he has plenty of opportunity to get himself help and get straightened out.

 

Another arrogant jock who thinks he can do whatever he wants, and often can. Why women throw themselves at these guys is beyond me.

 

I'll admit you raise an interesting point, YGBFKM, but I don't agree with the second sentence. That's not what I'm saying. Not at all. In fact, I'm from what could be easily described as middle America. Fly over country. My point is that no one area of the country has cornered the market on values. Virtue has nothing to do with geography. Klis is attempting to say that Roethlisberger was raised right, because he was raised true to the values that middle America holds dear. Are the values of Californians or Floridians or Marylanders or Oregonians any less virtuous? Of course not. And they're not better either. But no one ever says "I was raised with good old fashion East Coast values!"

In this instance, we're asked to believe that middle America treats its young men to have great respect for women (more so than, say, coastal America), and then I asked where was the progress to back up that allusion. Have Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, The Dakotas, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska been particularly progressive when it came to treating women as equals? Not that I know of. Michigan is the only mid-Western state to grant women the right to vote before the 19th Amendment. Meanwhile, every state in West had already given women the right to vote, even Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. So the analysis drawn here -- Middle American values = great respect for women -- isn't backed by historical facts.

I don't think I'm better than anyone is Ohio or Indiana or Iowa, nor do I think most people who live on the East or West Coast think this way. I do, however, think people get tired of hearing the people in those middle states have the values that make America great, which is implying those values aren't as strong elsewhere. They are, actually. That's what makes America a diverse wonderful place, one that isn't owned by any ideology or political party. A shithead is just as likely to live in Los Angeles as he is in Cleveland. Roethlisberger's excellent parenting could have occurred in West Baltimore and he'd have been no more or less likely to take a chick into a closet sized bathroom and force himself on her.

 

I am from Middle America. I now live outside of Middle America, live around people from all over and work in an office full of 20-somethings from all over the country

Old-fashioned, middle-America values is a crock of shit. There are good people everywhere, and there are huge pieces of crap everywhere, too.