Or dig into the volunteer work, see how it went, was he there beyond the court ordered, etc
Buck stops with Neely. Sweeney works for Neely. When Chiarelli was here, Neely got above him, but Chiarelli had roster control in his contract. Sweeney does not have that, Neely is the final say on everything in the organization.
Neely is head of hockey ops. Everything ultimately falls on him.
I don't think Sweeney was the one who spearheaded this. I think they did this against his better judgment just based on his comments on Friday. I think Neely saw that this kid had a chance to be really good and went with it.
There’s no excuse. Casual NHL fans knew the background of Miller. A general manager cannot claim ignorance on this and throw a lower level employee under the bus for not giving him all the information.
That's the thing. This wasn't some deep inside scoop. This was documented rather thoroughly a short 2 years ago. Does Cam not know what Google is? I can excuse him for not knowing the specifics after the 2 years, and I can even believe that others told him "no, no it's overblown he's a good kid" but don't you, as the boss, do even the most cursory investigation?
Why would ownership care about a random defensive prospect? It's definitely either Sweeney or Cam.
I think you're being way too hard on yourself. Your opinion on the signing - though different from mine - was never unreasonable. And you were never arguing in bad faith.
I don't understand what you're saying here. My post was meant to convey the idea that kids will repeat what they hear from their friends or from other kids on playgrounds or ballfields. You're not saying that kids only repeat what they hear at home, are you?
I get what you're saying, but what if their parents are absent or don't have as much influence on the kid's daily live as friends do? Kids certainly repeat what they hear from their parents, but also do the same from what they hear in other environments (e.g., school, playgrounds, etc...).
I'm not a parent, so I'm admittedly on thin ice if I make statements about what most kids do at home. All I know is that I went to great lengths not to repeat at home the curse words I learned at school, and I think other kids would probably try to do the same.
A 7 year old highly unlikely has done the independent research to understand why “Go pick cotton” is a bad thing to say. If they do, they are some kind of racist genius. They probably got it from someone older. For most those are parents. A kid may hear it from another kid on the proverbial playground but that kid likely heard it from somewhere.
My experience (mine and other parents') was that there was almost always a "test" at home (because kids are always testing boundaries). "Gee Mom, this broccoli really sucks." There might be less testing as the kid gets a little older, or if they become aware that certain words are really really off base. But it always seemed to me that kids' use of profanity almost always got back to the parents somehow. Sometimes, it's not even in a bad way from the kid. Like he doesn't see Agholor drop a pass and say "that n---." But maybe he asks, "Dad, what's a n---. Mitch in school called some kid that." Parent can answer in any number of ways.
As the one who started the off topic tangent, I think @Lose Remerswaal was getting to what I meant. Yes, there are a lot of words and things you hear on the playground coming from other kids that you then start to use without either thinking about it or knowing what it means. The cotton picking phrase just seemed to me one that you're not going to get on the elementary school playground but something you've heard, probably more than once, at home.
Don't discount the caché that "big kids" have in a younger child's world. I agree with what you are saying, but still maintain my original point--i.e., the kid repeating the phrase didn't necessarily hear it from his or her parent. That's all I'm saying.
It's a tangent, for sure, but not entirely off topic; it's just a sad, ugly mess.
At a minimum, given Miller's notoriety, a phone call to let them know it was happening and to hear them out is a compassionate thing to do. And not for nothing, it might have actually had an influence on Sweeney or Neely. Or maybe not. That's their call. The family doesn't get a veto. Imperfect analogy, but crime victims get a voice in the legal system.
I mean, the best reason is to talk to the victim's family is to make sure that what they are hearing from Miller's side is accurate. The other stuff I'm not so sure about.
This isn't a court of law. "Cotton picking" is an antiquated phrase that's very unlikely to have been heard from peers; it's reasonable to assume he heard that at home. Given the long period of time where Miller tormented a Black child, given the family's continued statements that the way that torment was being presented was "exaggerated," and given that Miller himself has either done the bare minimum or done nothing at all to make amends with the victim and his family, it's reasonable to assume that the family is filled with deeply offensive and horrible people who have encouraged and enabled Miller to similarly be a deeply offensive and horrible person.
I don't agree. I think it was the reaction of the players in the locker room (and I'm guessing in the rest of the organization) that was the nail in the coffin. They don't really give a shit about the fans, but when the players get asked and come out vehemently against it, they knew they were toast. Ty Anderson is saying too that many many others inside the org were against this.
Right - but I don't think they expected their team leaders to come out publicly against it so uniformly and clearly. Plus here's the tweet from Ty Anderson I referred to earlier - this was only going to get worse. If the organization was on board (and fan reaction the same) I think he's still here, unfortunately.
Also, there are many ways to describe the majority of hard-core hockey parents, and "absentee" and 'hands-off" are not among them.
"Cotton picking" may be an antiquated phrase, but it is still used in ugly, racist settings, just ask Ole Miss or UGA administrators. And the kids that used it in the UGA video would be this dude's age group.
I don't know why you're going out of your way to give the family the benefit of the doubt, but given what we've seen the family doing in terms of attempting to minimize the damage done to Isaiah from the years of abuse, and given the thread above where they and their sycophants are doing their damndest to slander Isaiah and his family while Miller's sister uses vile homophobic slurs, I'm fairly comfortable in my assessment of the family that I posted above.
NO, NO, NO!. I am NOT giving the benefit of the doubt to Miller or his family or defending them. They bear full responsibility for what happened to Isiah. PERIOD.
