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Don Wassall

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And btw, I know you're new to the site and a good poster, but this silly topic of White quarterbacks being attacked for not being martyrs to the "cause" no matter what their personal belief system happens to be, has popped up periodically for years, going back to a former poster who decided one day that it was Carson Palmer's duty to denounce the Caste System, so yeah I don't have any patience for it when it rears its head. This site is about supporting White athletes, not criticizing them because they don't live up to some ideal, unobtainable way of conducting their personal lives.
 

white is right

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Not the same topic but the few players who have exposed PED usage in the big 4 sports and named names have had the same pariah experiences. The sports establishment don't take kindly to disgruntled players that potentially ruin the pure image of the various pro leagues.

It would take a real guy with cajones who had no intentions of being in the good graces of the various leagues to do this. He would probably have to be a recluse who would be off the grid in rural Montana or a similar local.
 

chris371

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Absolutely right Don. If at all, ist feasible as a retiree.
Now I, on the other hand, speak my mind openly and most people just ignore it. No one contacts my employer or the press or whatever. I have zero consequences.
 

Quiet Speed

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Tony Romo was a pleasant surprise as a color commentator. He did not fawn and gush as Chrissy would every time a black player made a mundane play. And he spoke well about our men. At one point, when Gronk scored while rookie Alex Anzalone was the coverage man, Romo said Anzalone initially had good coverage but after nine second it's difficult. Lol. I could see any number of announcers ripping the Alex for the duration of the game.
 

FootballDad

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New rule: No one can criticize White athletes for not throwing away their careers and becoming martyrs on behalf of White Nationalism, unless they provide proof that they have set the example themselves by speaking out at their own workplace.

That's the end of this subject.
Hey Don, since Chris Long is no longer officially white, we can bash him though, right? ;)
 

DixieDestroyer

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Hey Don, since Chris Long is no longer officially white, we can bash him though, right? ;)

Anyone who's a commie pinko/libtard &/or deviant (s0d0mites, transformers, etc.) is NOT worthy of inclusion within the great White race.
 

Don Wassall

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Tony Romo was a pleasant surprise as a color commentator. He did not fawn and gush as Chrissy would every time a black player made a mundane play. And he spoke well about our men. At one point, when Gronk scored while rookie Alex Anzalone was the coverage man, Romo said Anzalone initially had good coverage but after nine second it's difficult. Lol. I could see any number of announcers ripping the Alex for the duration of the game.

I thought he did a very good job too, especially considering he's brand new to it. A welcome upgrade over Phyllis Simms.
 

Upside

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Look at some of these free agents still on the street:

Nick Mangold - as bad as offensive lines have been this year, somehow, nobody has any use for one of the best linemen of the last decade?
Gary Barnidge - 1600 yards and 11 TDs in the last two seasons...jobless. Someone's going to have to explain this one...
Dan Skuta - 2 years removed from a 5 sack season. basically wasted the last two years of his career in Jacksonville (11 starts)...
Paul Kruger - 35 career sacks in 65 starts. just 2 years removed from an 11 sack season; apparently committed career suicide by signing with New Orleans last year...
Audie Cole - the 'perpetually in-line for a starting job' linebacker, suddenly can't find a gig, even as a backup...
Ben Heeney - started 3 games as a rookie, had 38 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and a FF. Apparently not enough upside for the Raiders, or anyone else....
 

Extra Point

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Look at some of these free agents still on the street:

Nick Mangold - as bad as offensive lines have been this year, somehow, nobody has any use for one of the best linemen of the last decade?
Gary Barnidge - 1600 yards and 11 TDs in the last two seasons...jobless. Someone's going to have to explain this one...
Dan Skuta - 2 years removed from a 5 sack season. basically wasted the last two years of his career in Jacksonville (11 starts)...
Paul Kruger - 35 career sacks in 65 starts. just 2 years removed from an 11 sack season; apparently committed career suicide by signing with New Orleans last year...
Audie Cole - the 'perpetually in-line for a starting job' linebacker, suddenly can't find a gig, even as a backup...
Ben Heeney - started 3 games as a rookie, had 38 tackles, 2.5 sacks, and a FF. Apparently not enough upside for the Raiders, or anyone else....

Pretty much says it all.

Those of you who don't believe in the caste system, how do you explain players such as Mangold and Barnidge being unemployed?

I'll throw in Brian Hartline too. He had two 1000 yard seasons and no one will sign him. Do you think he's not better than some of the receivers on the Bears, for example?
 

Rocky B

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Pretty much says it all.

Those of you who don't believe in the caste system, how do you explain players such as Mangold and Barnidge being unemployed?

I'll throw in Brian Hartline too. He had two 1000 yard seasons and no one will sign him. Do you think he's not better than some of the receivers on the Bears, for example?

I will put Gerhart in this category, for sure.....
What a waste of talent......
He was awesome, and still would be decent.....
There are over 100 backs signed, he's not worthy of at least a third string spot....????
 

Flint

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They have far more to lose than Joe Sixpack. Let's say Matt Stafford is a secret Caste Football lurker. He recently signed a 5 year $135 million contract. Tomorrow he decides to "speak out," denouncing the Caste System, calling the NFL anti-White, decrying black dysfunction and Jewish domination of the media. He is immediately met by a firestorm of hate. The Lions invoke a morality clause in his contract and he forfeits $135 million and never plays again in the NFL. He joins Marge Schott, Jimmy the Greek, John Rocker, and Al Campanis in the Perpetual Villains Hall of Fame. He is ridiculed by every comedian, and his name is invoked every time the subject is White racism. Not one journalist, opinion maker, analyst or politician supports him. He is heckled in public, and antifa try to physically assault him. There's nowhere he can go in public without heavy security.

Those are just a few of the things that would happen. Now give me your list of the positives that Matt would enjoy by "speaking out."

Don, I disagree. No one expects an athlete to suddenly become Don Wassall, but there are degrees of behavior that can be expected. Chris Long,and for that matter Palmer don't meet that test. I think it's a basic standard of morality, it's not "white" morality, just basic morality, to not go out of your way to support and compliment people you know that are bad by any measure of decency. It's one thing to tolerate bad people in a free society and another to enable it. There are many many baby steps that can be taken that would not cause a team to invoke a morality clause. But they still refuse to do it. In fact the ones I have an issue with are not the ones that keep silent when they should speak up, but the ones that go out of their way to support ideas that they should know are wrong. How can we expect the world to change if we don't want anyone to stick their neck out to do it?

This is similar to Trump. Trump has gone where no politician went before. He has been extremely successful. A politician would not have to go full "Trump" to have the same kind of success. But they don't. I despise the ones that stay silent when a small word would go a long way, but I have special contempt for those politicians that go out of their way to push forward the anti-white philosophy.

Furthermore public shaming is a big part of social conditioning. If we can't shame our own people on this extremely modest site then we have no voice at all. The only purpose this site serves is as a safe space for discussion of these topics. Why limit it?
 

Westside

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My communicated intent last night is what Flint posted, albeit, more eloquently than I.
 

Don Wassall

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Don, I disagree. No one expects an athlete to suddenly become Don Wassall, but there are degrees of behavior that can be expected. Chris Long,and for that matter Palmer don't meet that test. I think it's a basic standard of morality, it's not "white" morality, just basic morality, to not go out of your way to support and compliment people you know that are bad by any measure of decency. It's one thing to tolerate bad people in a free society and another to enable it. There are many many baby steps that can be taken that would not cause a team to invoke a morality clause. But they still refuse to do it. In fact the ones I have an issue with are not the ones that keep silent when they should speak up, but the ones that go out of their way to support ideas that they should know are wrong. How can we expect the world to change if we don't want anyone to stick their neck out to do it?

This is similar to Trump. Trump has gone where no politician went before. He has been extremely successful. A politician would not have to go full "Trump" to have the same kind of success. But they don't. I despise the ones that stay silent when a small word would go a long way, but I have special contempt for those politicians that go out of their way to push forward the anti-white philosophy.

Furthermore public shaming is a big part of social conditioning. If we can't shame our own people on this extremely modest site then we have no voice at all. The only purpose this site serves is as a safe space for discussion of these topics. Why limit it?

I strongly disagree. If we are going to condemn White athletes for conducting themselves in their work environment differently than some ideal way we want them to, we'll be disappointed every single time.

Again, how do you know Carson Palmer or Matt Stafford even hold the same beliefs you do? I would bet any amount of money they don't. To condemn a White athlete for not jeopardizing his career is ridiculous, and beyond what this site is for. And Carson Palmer has done absolutely nothing wrong, other than to be equally supportive of both his black teammates as well as his White ones. The whole Carson Palmer animus here is based on a lie, or at best absurd expectations of how a White athlete should conduct himself in an overwhelmingly black environment. The fact that some here still insist on making him a villain only further convinces me how wrong and misguided the "White quarterbacks need to be the saviors of the White race" expectations are.

We support White athletes because when they excel it is a blow against the Caste System. Period. Their personal moral or ideological beliefs are irrelevant. We can point out the anti-White behavior of a Chris Long, but to pre-emptively condemn White quarterbacks -- and it's always White quarterbacks, never any other position or any other sport -- for not martyring themselves, nope.

If you really want to change society, get off your butt and become active yourself. Or sacrifice financially to pro-White organizations. Politics and grassroots activism are the appropriate realms for pro-White change, not football locker rooms. If ten percent of the people in this country who are pro-White actually did something our situation wouldn't be nearly as dire. Look in the mirror before condemning Carson Palmer for not willingly inviting the "John Rocker treatment." Help create positive change and then maybe some well-known public figures will follow.

I moderate Caste Football with a very light touch, but on this point there is no bending. No attacks on White quarterbacks for not adhering to the "Caste Football philosophy." I've requested this politely for years. From now on, all such posts will be deleted.
 

Freethinker

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What if someone like Riley Cooper spoke out about his experiences in SEC football and the NFL? If Paul Kersey of SBPDL is to be believed, he expressed on an episode of The Daily Shoah that he was contacted by Riley's dad saying his son knows the score. If Riley is red pilled then he probably is woke on the Caste System too. He'd have less to loose as his NFL career is over and he's publicly perceived as a "racist" anyway.

I'd never hold it against the guy if he won't but it would likely take a guy in his situation to speak out. We know a Brady or Stafford (if they shared our views let's pretend) never will for the valid reasons Don mentioned.

Let's face reality that the athlete will need Trumpian balls to speak out and not give an F what people say. Men like that with a platform are few and far between.
 

wile

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I second Don. It's up to us. It will take a few sharp words of rhetoric to turn this around but it will be done. The caste system is a product of the dominant culture which is speeding up its own discredit . The demagogues and trolls of the Left won't be able to tie up you conservative types for much longer
 

Bruce

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They have far more to lose than Joe Sixpack. Let's say Matt Stafford is a secret Caste Football lurker. He recently signed a 5 year $135 million contract. Tomorrow he decides to "speak out," denouncing the Caste System, calling the NFL anti-White, decrying black dysfunction and Jewish domination of the media. He is immediately met by a firestorm of hate. The Lions invoke a morality clause in his contract and he forfeits $135 million and never plays again in the NFL. He joins Marge Schott, Jimmy the Greek, John Rocker, and Al Campanis in the Perpetual Villains Hall of Fame. He is ridiculed by every comedian, and his name is invoked every time the subject is White racism. Not one journalist, opinion maker, analyst or politician supports him. He is heckled in public, and antifa try to physically assault him. There's nowhere he can go in public without heavy security.

Those are just a few of the things that would happen. Now give me your list of the positives that Matt would enjoy by "speaking out."
Whose position would you rather be in, a guy who loses 100 million dollars but still has 50 million in the bank or a guy who loses his 50k a year job and only has 10k in the bank and a mortgage to pay off? There's no need to use extreme examples to make your point, not even Richard Spencer would go on a mainstream news network and talk about the things you mentioned in your post. There's a very large middle ground in between going full fash and saying White athletes are getting a raw deal these days. Would there really be that big of a backlash if a player said that? I don't think so. Stafford isn't someone who I had in mind either, he's just entering his prime now, but well established older players who have either retired or are close to retirement would be prime candidates. Players like Brees, Brady, Manning, Rivers,Palmer,etc.
He is ridiculed by every comedian, and his name is invoked every time the subject is White racism. Not one journalist, opinion maker, analyst or politician supports him. He is heckled in public, and antifa try to physically assault him. There's nowhere he can go in public without heavy security.

None of that would happen. Most people wouldn't give a ****, especially if the player just said White athletes are getting screwed and didn't go full 1488. Come on even people like Spencer are able to go out in public and live fairly normal lives. Very few NFL players are even that recognizable, especially if they're living in major cities.

For a list of positive things how about living with the satisfaction of knowing that you did what was in your power to help rid the world of evil, that you tried to expose a viscous, cruel, and racist system that crushes the hopes and dreams of millions of innocent white boys, a system that makes your fellow countrymen worship and look up to 70 IQ criminal blacks and gives those same thugs unlimited access to your women.

But yeah is all that really worth it if Deadspin and Stephen Colbert are just going to make mean jokes about you?
 

Bruce

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I second Don. It's up to us. It will take a few sharp words of rhetoric to turn this around but it will be done. The caste system is a product of the dominant culture which is speeding up its own discredit . The demagogues and trolls of the Left won't be able to tie up you conservative types for much longer
The election of Trump and the subsequent rise of the Alt Right into the political mainstream has shown that grassroots efforts are futile in comparison to having the support of one rich, famous, and powerful person. How many decades now have nationalists been pounding the pavement, writing books and papers, starting blogs, and getting involved with online and real life activism? And all to no avail. But all it took was for one powerful and opportunistic person to get that message out there and it spread like wildfire all throughout the country .

Just imagine how different the outlook of our movement(specifically the caste system) would look if someone like Tom Brady started talking about it in a polite and unoffensive manner ? I think it would cause a cataclysmic change to occur. Pretty much everyone who voted for Trump would become aware and stand opposed to the caste system, and that's probably a low number given how many people there are who follow sports but don't care about politics.

But how could we ever ask Tom Brady to risk hurting his reputation. Only like 60% of the country hates him now, the mainstream sports media hates him, but the Boston sports media loves him. Would he really want to risk losing all of that support? Plus he and his wife are only worth $500 million dollars. That's really not as much money as it used to be before.
 

CrazyFinn

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I believe there's a misunderstanding with regards to how Carson Palmer has ended up in the CF doghouse. I don't think a single person has ever condemned Palmer for not taking a pro-white nationalist position or speaking out against the caste system, thereby jeopardizing his career. The problem with Palmer has always been his unconditional support for his black teammates at the expense of white ones, and on several occasions throwing white players under the bus.

So, we don't expect Palmer to become a caste spokesman, but why does he have to go out of his way to become an afflete enabler, while never ever supporting white players the same way?
 

Bruce

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I believe there's a misunderstanding with regards to how Carson Palmer has ended up in the CF doghouse. I don't think a single person has ever condemned Palmer for not taking a pro-white nationalist position or speaking out against the caste system, thereby jeopardizing his career. The problem with Palmer has always been his unconditional support for his black teammates at the expense of white ones, and on several occasions throwing white players under the bus.

So, we don't expect Palmer to become a caste spokesman, but why does he have to go out of his way to become an afflete enabler, while never ever supporting white players the same way?
Honestly I don't blame him at all for sticking up for any of his afflete teammates. Even as a member of this website I would do the same thing, that includes sticking up for deceased thugs like Chris Henry.
 

Don Wassall

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I believe there's a misunderstanding with regards to how Carson Palmer has ended up in the CF doghouse. I don't think a single person has ever condemned Palmer for not taking a pro-white nationalist position or speaking out against the caste system, thereby jeopardizing his career. The problem with Palmer has always been his unconditional support for his black teammates at the expense of white ones, and on several occasions throwing white players under the bus.

So, we don't expect Palmer to become a caste spokesman, but why does he have to go out of his way to become an afflete enabler, while never ever supporting white players the same way?

What is your evidence for this?

I just went back to one of the Carson Palmer threads and found the following two squibs from longer articles. First here is Palmer on Matt Jones:

Count Palmer in after throwing to his veteran receivers for six days before Tuesday. On Monday, he said Matt Jones, the former first-round draft pick that hasn't caught an NFL pass since '08, and free-agent pickup Antonio Bryant can give him what he's been missing since the departure of T.J. Houshmandzadeh and the injury to the late Chris Henry.

After the offense went against a defense for the first time Tuesday, you saw and heard why. While Palmer continued to be impressed by Jones, Bryant raved about Palmer. Palmer didn't throw a deep ball to Jones on Tuesday because the Bengals were installing their short routes. But twice Jones ran by a top-tier cornerback in Leon Hall during drills and caught one of them.

Here is Palmer on Brian Leonard:

As Leonard talked, my mind flashed back to the Bengals' unlikely win in Green Bay last weekend. It suddenly occurred to me that what Leonard had been saying sounded very little like those old Bengals' tales of woe.

"That guy just makes plays," Palmer said. "He converted the fourth down. He converted the extra point and then he sprinted from the end zone down to go cover the kickoff because he's on the kickoff team. He didn't say a word. He didn't smile. He didn't laugh. He's just a workhorse.

"He's always where he needs to be. He's always picking up pressure when he needs to pick up pressure. And when he needs to make big plays he essentially makes big plays."

My contention all along has been that Carson Palmer, like all other NFL quarterbacks, talks positively about his teammates, both black and White. Just as I would in the same situation and I'm sure anyone else with the slightest understanding of the racial dynamics of the NFL and society at large would as well. I've never once read a quote by Carson Palmer denigrating a White teammate. Now show me two examples of when Palmer "threw a White teammate under the bus."
 

Bruce

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Sob story from ESPN the magazine about Eddie Lacy and his weight struggles. I really wanted to laugh at first but I have to admit I was very moved by the piece

ESPN THE MAGAZINE
“You Just Can't Shake It”
For the first time, Seahawks running back Eddie Lacy opens up about his agonizingly public struggle with weight.
by Kevin Van Valkenburg
09/20/17

It's 75 degrees and beautiful in Renton, Washington. The sky is clear and blue. When new Seahawks running back Eddie Lacy climbs out of his Corvette and waves to me in a park near his condo, I notice he's brought a towel. It's a small towel, tan and about the size of a dishrag. We find an empty bench, near the playground, and take a seat. As Lacy speaks in an affable baritone, he holds the towel gently in his thick hands, occasionally massaging it like he wants assurance it's still there.

Eventually he explains that he gets nervous when he does interviews, and he sweats when he gets nervous. So he came prepared today.

Lacy had to think long and hard before agreeing to meet up and talk like this. There is a good chance, each of us concedes, that this interview will just give his trolls a fresh batch of ammunition. Social media has done wonders in recent years to bridge the gap between fans and professional athletes, but increased intimacy comes with drawbacks, and nobody understands that better than Eddie Lacy.

"I could pull up my Twitter right now and there would be a fat comment in there somewhere," he says. "Like I could tweet, 'Today is a beautiful day!' and someone would be like, 'Oh yeah? You fat.' I sit there and wonder: 'What do you get out of that?'"

When the internet turns one of your most personal flaws into a meme, how the hell do you possibly escape it?

Ever since his weight became a public topic during his four years in Green Bay -- which included two 1,100-yard seasons -- Lacy had read those kinds of comments and brooded in silence, convinced he couldn't win. Responding would only give his tormentors a smirk of satisfaction, knowing they'd wounded him. If he worked hard, got back in shape through yoga and P90X, maybe then the jokes would fade.

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Except they didn't fade. If anything, they multiplied.

And while he lost weight -- albeit slowly -- getting down to where he wanted (around 240 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame) and keeping it off was a miserable slog during his Packers years. In the meantime, people photoshopped pictures of Lacy's stomach to make it seem like he had a Santa Claus physique. Someone searched through his Twitter account and noticed that back in college he had an affinity for Chinese food, and he loved tweeting about it. They screenshotted every tweet and made a collage that quickly went viral.

"I always called it China food," Lacy, 27, says with a grin. "There is no way around it, I love sesame chicken and shrimp fried rice so much. It's awesome."

He chuckled at first, but the collage also stung. It kept showing up in his feed, an endless cycle of snark, rebooted each day. "It sucks," Lacy says. "It definitely sent me into a funk. I wish I could understand what they get out of it."

When Lacy left the Packers in free agency and signed with Seattle, agreeing to periodic weigh-ins as part of a one-year contract laden with incentives, his fight to shed the pounds he'd put on after ankle surgery became something of a recurring national joke. He stood to make $55,000 every time he hit a weight goal, but at some point he started to feel indifferent about the money. Instead, the monthly ritual of turning his weight into a public spectacle began to feel a bit like a public shaming.

He assumed the weigh-ins would stay private, between the team doctors and Seahawks coaches. But the first time he weighed in, he remembers the result getting out within 20 minutes. Even his agency tweeted it out when he passed the first two weigh-ins, despite the fact that its client was hardly thrilled to share the news.

"I hate that it has to be public," Lacy says. "Because it's like, if you don't make it, what happens? Clearly you don't get the money, but whatever. I don't really care about that. It's just more the negative things that are going to come."

It's uncomfortable for Lacy to delve into all this, to put his struggle into any kind of context that feels relatable. In part, that's because he stopped opening up to people when he was in high school, shortly after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his house in Gretna, Louisiana, upending his family's life and leaving him with no emotional anchor, no real place to call home. It took years for him to sort through the impact of that upheaval. The recent hurricane disaster scenes opened up some of those old wounds.

"It pretty much brought back everything that happened to me," Lacy says of Hurricane Harvey. "Nobody's life will ever be the same there. It just sucks."

He agreed to chat, however, in part because he knows he's talking to a kindred spirit. We've both stared in misery at a chicken breast and a salad, reluctantly fighting off the urge to add french fries. We've both learned to dread looking down between our toes and seeing the cold, hard numbers stare back from the scale, almost taunting us. We're both around 6 feet, 245 pounds, and don't look fat per se, but we sure as hell ain't skinny. Guys like us don't garner much sympathy. There's no backlash when we're the butt of sitcom jokes. It's easy to look at us and assume a lack of willpower, a weakness in our character. And in our darker moments, we can't help but wonder: "Are those people right?"

The difference between us, though, is that I wrestle with my fried-food demons mostly in private. Lacy is bombarded with insults every time he opens an app on his phone.

"You just can't shake it," he says. "And no matter what, you can't say nothing back to them. You just have to read it, get mad or however it makes you feel, and move on. I could be 225 and they'd still be like, 'You're still a fat piece of s---.'"

r261149_608x503cc.jpg

In September 2015, Lacy's electric first two seasons in Green Bay had him ranked near the top of most fantasy draft boards. DENNIS WIERZBICKI/USA TODAY SPORTS

LACY WAS NEVER lazy as a kid growing up in the New Orleans suburb of Gretna. He was always moving, always on his bike zooming around the neighborhood. He wouldn't even sit still long enough to watch sports on TV. He got bored. He preferred to be out in the yard playing sports. He and his friends did everything -- football, basketball, baseball. (One of Lacy's closest childhood friends, Joe Broussard, is a Triple-A pitching prospect for the Dodgers.) "I used to be small and skinny, and I had braids like Allen Iverson," Lacy says. "I really thought I was going to be like AI."

After school, he and his brothers would race home, watch 30 minutes of cartoons -- Dragon Ball Z was his favorite by far -- then play outside until the streetlights came on and their parents ordered them inside. According to his mom, Wanda, Lacy was one of the happiest, most outgoing kids in the neighborhood.

"He was always such a playful kid," Wanda says. "His teachers would tell me, 'Eddie does his work, but as soon as he's done, he's distracting the class.' He loved to make people laugh. He was always a little jokester."

Everything changed, though, at the start of Lacy's freshman year of high school in 2005. With Katrina looming, the Lacys escaped to Beaumont, Texas, to stay with family, leaving behind their three-bedroom brick house in Gretna. They watched the news footage from afar, wondering when -- then if -- they'd return. It would be weeks before that was possible, and when they did come back to collect what was left, they wore masks because the stench was so strong. Their home was destroyed, most of their stuff looted. They stayed in Texas until the money ran out, then moved in with Lacy's aunt in Baton Rouge for a spell. Ten people shared a house with three bedrooms and one bathroom. Eventually, they moved into a tiny trailer in Geismar, a small town 30 minutes south of Baton Rouge. "I honestly just shut down," Lacy says.

Wanda and her husband, Eddie Lacy Sr., knew their son was hurting, that he wasn't making friends and was angry at the world, but there wasn't much they could do. The whole family was just trying to survive. The football field became an outlet for Lacy. He ran with anger, unleashing his frustration on poor defenders, eventually earning a scholarship to Alabama.

Wanda was a big believer in therapy, but Lacy didn't want to talk to anyone. So she asked him one day if he'd at least be willing to scribble down his feelings and frustrations in a journal as a form of release. He agreed, but he also had a request.

The ceiling of Lacy's childhood bedroom had been covered with glow-in-the-dark stars. Every night, he lay awake in the trailer, staring at the dark ceiling, missing his old bedroom. Was there any way, he asked, she could find more of those stickers? It took Wanda several weeks, but eventually she spotted some in a Winn-Dixie in Baton Rouge. While he was at school, she covered his ceiling and walls with them. Lacy was so happy, the happiest he'd been in months, maybe years. "I look up and I feel like I'm in the sky," Lacy told his mom. "Everything seems OK when I'm looking up."

If there was one other thing that made him feel safe and back to normal, it was gathering with his family for home-cooked meals. Even though his mom was going to nursing school up in Baton Rouge, she made it home every day to prepare dinner.

"It was southern Louisiana cooking, so nothing healthy," Lacy says. "No vegetables to speak of, I'll tell you that. Typical dinner might be fried chicken, red beans and rice. Or pork and beans. Fried pork chops. Everything that is not good for you that tastes good, you know? Crawfish too. That was probably my favorite. I could eat crawfish literally every day."

Looking back, he can't help but wonder whether his eating habits might have been different if he'd grown up someplace where healthy eating is more widely emphasized. But his family was in the same classic trap as so many families struggling to feed a big group on a small budget.

"It was all bad stuff, but it was cheaper, so we didn't have to spend a lot of money on it," Lacy says. "Even if we had gone the healthy route, how long could we have sustained it? Maybe a couple weeks, or maybe a month. Everything we ate, my mom made us eat bread with it because she knew it would fill us up and we would feel less hungry later. She had to feed us, and she did the best she could."

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"You just can't shake it," Lacy says. "And no matter what, you can't say nothing back to them. You just have to read it, get mad or however it makes you feel, and move on. I could be 225 and they'd still be like, 'You're still a fat piece of s---.'" IAN ALLEN FOR ESPN

WHEN LACY ARRIVED at the University of Alabama in 2009, it was the first time since Katrina that he felt comfortable in his surroundings. He made friends, and he was thrilled to get out of that trailer. But on the field, he was overwhelmed. Defensive linemen were faster than he was, and he'd never lifted weights, just getting by on his natural strength and talent. Now the Crimson Tide coaching staff was pushing him to exhaustion. He second-guessed his decision to come to Tuscaloosa nearly every day.

"It was the worst year of my life," Lacy says. "But it just shows if you push your body, it responds. For four years, you have somebody telling you what to do, make you as big as you can, as strong as you can, as fast as you can be. They try to make this bionic person, basically. But it just shows if you push your body, it responds."

Once he made it to the NFL -- drafted in the second round by the Packers after running for 1,322 yards and 17 touchdowns as a junior, capped by winning Offensive MVP honors in Bama's BCS championship victory over Notre Dame in January 2013 -- Lacy could hardly believe how easy practices were. After his first Packers workout was over, he thought to himself: "This is all we have to do?"

Looking back, he concedes he could have done a better job of pushing to stay closer to his ideal weight. But at the same time, he was succeeding. He was the NFL offensive rookie of the year in 2013. He ran for a combined 2,317 yards his first two seasons, rolling downfield like a bowling ball but with the feet of a dancer. To watch him lower his shoulder into a defender, then pirouette into a balletic spin move, was like seeing a work of football art. At times, he looked like a reincarnation of Jerome Bettis, the Steelers running back who rumbled into the Hall of Fame.

The Packers, though, didn't see it that way. They were initially supportive of Lacy's fight to keep his weight down, but their patience eroded. When Lacy's production dipped in his third year, coach Mike McCarthy made it clear in a season-ending news conference that Lacy could either lose weight or lose playing time. "He's got a lot of work to do," McCarthy said. "His offseason last year was not good enough, and he never recovered from it. He cannot play at the weight he played at this year."

The two cleared the air in private, with McCarthy expressing regret for calling his running back out in a news conference, and Lacy insists now that no hard feelings lingered. He says he was ultimately motivated by the whole thing.

But the fat jokes mushroomed. No one saw him as a charming-if-chubby wrecking ball like Bettis. "I don't get it," Lacy says. "[Bettis] is a Hall of Famer. I guess times are just different. They really don't have big backs anymore."

Lacy showed up for the 2016 season in excellent shape, having dropped 22 pounds in the offseason by doing P90X workouts, and he declared he was done talking about his weight. There were no complaints about his play either, as he averaged 5.1 yards a carry through five games. But when an ankle injury in October led to season-ending surgery, all his hard work was quietly erased.

"I literally couldn't do anything for months," Lacy says. "I obviously just got bigger. I can't do nothing about it. All you can do is lay down and eat. What are you supposed to do?"

He decided a change of scenery might be good for everyone and told the Packers he'd explore free agency after the season. When he began visiting teams and a few of them asked him to step on a scale, even Lacy was a bit surprised at what he saw: He weighed 267.

"Sometimes I wish I was a person with high metabolism who could just eat whatever they want and can't gain a pound," Lacy says. "You've got certain teammates who are like, 'Man, it don't matter what I eat, I can't gain weight.' And I'm like, 'It don't matter what kind of diet I'm on, it's super hard for me to lose weight, and it's so easy for me to put it back on.'"

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Lacy's new contract (one year, $5.6 million) includes a $55,000 bonus every time he makes a monthly weight target. JOE NICHOLSON/USA TODAY SPORTS

SHOULD YOU FEEL sympathy for Lacy, or skepticism and scorn?

On one hand, a professional athlete's body is the engine that drives his economic value. If you can't maintain that engine, it doesn't make you a bad person -- more than a third of Americans are overweight -- but professional sports will be a challenge. Most of us don't follow sports to see people we can relate to. We expect peak physical excellence. There have been exceptions -- golfer John Daly comes to mind -- but very few. Even Babe Ruth was frequently ridiculed for being out of shape.

On the other hand, it's not like Lacy isn't trying. He's lost more than 20 pounds since signing with the Seahawks. He doesn't see how weighing less will make him more effective, and 245 is as low as he needs to be, according to his contract.

Still, during every team dinner, Lacy dutifully grabs a grilled chicken breast and a salad and tries to ignore his teammates as they pile chicken wings and spaghetti and ice cream onto their plates. Lacy says he hasn't had Chinese food in "forever," so long ago he can't even remember. Yet every single day this offseason, someone was happy to remind him of that old life, the days when he could eat whatever he wanted.

"People are always tweeting at me stuff like: 'I'm about to go get China food, shout out to Eddie,'" Lacy says. "Or, 'Hey, Eddie, this China food is why you weigh 260 pounds.' You want to say, 'Dawg, that was five years ago. How is something that happened [then] still relevant?' But nobody cares. The negativity is always there, whether you're doing good or you're going through a funk."

“I sit there and wonder: 'What do you get out of that?'”

- LACY ON THE CONSTANT WEIGHT COMMENTS HE RECEIVES
In this era of social media, once you become a meme, it doesn't really go away. The internet never forgets. Lacy is mostly at peace with that. He posted his Beachbody workouts on Twitter and Instagram this past offseason, knowing he'd be mocked. (He was.) He does find snippets of encouragement in the handful of positive comments: "Every one of those gave me a little more courage," Lacy says.

Even after a promising preseason, the trolls returned en masse on his Instagram after a disappointing performance (five carries for just 3 yards) against his former team in Seattle's first game: Eddie Lacy needs to go vegan like yesterday! Maybe you shoulda put the Eddie Burgers from A&W down and you'd still be on the Packers' roster. And they swarmed on Twitter after he was a healthy scratch in Week 2: Eddie Lacy getting millions to be a lazy fat f---.

If he's being honest, though, there is a part of him that kind of likes being big.

Sometimes Lacy likes to imagine there is a kid out there following his career, maybe someone who is a little thick around the waist and not blessed with great metabolism but who has quick feet and great balance. Someone wants to make that kid a lineman, but he wants to stay at running back. Maybe he lives in a trailer, feeling lost and displaced, but he stares up at the stars on his ceiling at night, dreaming of the unlikely but not impossible.
 

Don Wassall

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The election of Trump and the subsequent rise of the Alt Right into the political mainstream has shown that grassroots efforts are futile in comparison to having the support of one rich, famous, and powerful person. How many decades now have nationalists been pounding the pavement, writing books and papers, starting blogs, and getting involved with online and real life activism? And all to no avail. But all it took was for one powerful and opportunistic person to get that message out there and it spread like wildfire all throughout the country .

Just imagine how different the outlook of our movement(specifically the caste system) would look if someone like Tom Brady started talking about it in a polite and unoffensive manner ? I think it would cause a cataclysmic change to occur. Pretty much everyone who voted for Trump would become aware and stand opposed to the caste system, and that's probably a low number given how many people there are who follow sports but don't care about politics.

But how could we ever ask Tom Brady to risk hurting his reputation. Only like 60% of the country hates him now, the mainstream sports media hates him, but the Boston sports media loves him. Would he really want to risk losing all of that support? Plus he and his wife are only worth $500 million dollars. That's really not as much money as it used to be before.

The election of Trump and the subsequent rise of the Alt Right into the political mainstream has shown that grassroots efforts are futile in comparison to having the support of one rich, famous, and powerful person. How many decades now have nationalists been pounding the pavement, writing books and papers, starting blogs, and getting involved with online and real life activism? And all to no avail. But all it took was for one powerful and opportunistic person to get that message out there and it spread like wildfire all throughout the country .

Just imagine how different the outlook of our movement(specifically the caste system) would look if someone like Tom Brady started talking about it in a polite and unoffensive manner ? I think it would cause a cataclysmic change to occur. Pretty much everyone who voted for Trump would become aware and stand opposed to the caste system, and that's probably a low number given how many people there are who follow sports but don't care about politics.

But how could we ever ask Tom Brady to risk hurting his reputation. Only like 60% of the country hates him now, the mainstream sports media hates him, but the Boston sports media loves him. Would he really want to risk losing all of that support? Plus he and his wife are only worth $500 million dollars. That's really not as much money as it used to be before.

1. The alt-right is not in the "political mainstream." Would you call the media reaction to what happened at Charlottesville evidence that the alt-right is now regarded as mainstream?

2. One of my biggest laments is how few nationalists have been pounding the pavement and engaging in real life activism the past few decades. The vast majority of racially aware White Americans will not lift a finger to help their race, whether by being an activist, and/or joining or financially contributing to those organizations that are trying to represent them. This apathy and, yes, cowardice, is one of the main reasons so many are reduced to fantasizing about Carson Palmer or Tom Brady "speaking out" and becoming some kind of man on a white horse riding to the rescue rather than building a grassroots movement that begins to accumulate some actual power. Real life power is the only way anything changes. I've been at this for 32 years, and I've heard every excuse in the book for not getting involved. Having fantasies about White quarterbacks becoming the leaders of the White race is a pretty good tell that a person is a keyboard commando, not an activist.

3. This whole infatuation with White quarterbacks as the reluctant saviors of the White race presupposes that they think just like we do but lack the courage to speak out. I daresay that if you walked up to Tom Brady and began telling him about a "caste system" in the NFL and that Chris Hogan and Rex Burkhead are "caste-busters" he would probably laugh in your face. These guys are jocks, not philosopher kings. We're here to root for them, not expect them to cure the world's problems. None of them are going to "speak out" so let's get back to rooting for them as athletes.
 

white is right

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1. The alt-right is not in the "political mainstream." Would you call the media reaction to what happened at Charlottesville evidence that the alt-right is now regarded as mainstream?

2. One of my biggest laments is how few nationalists have been pounding the pavement and engaging in real life activism the past few decades. The vast majority of racially aware White Americans will not lift a finger to help their race, whether by being an activist, and/or joining or financially contributing to those organizations that are trying to represent them. This apathy and, yes, cowardice, is one of the main reasons so many are reduced to fantasizing about Carson Palmer or Tom Brady "speaking out" and becoming some kind of man on a white horse riding to the rescue rather than building a grassroots movement that begins to accumulate some actual power. Real life power is the only way anything changes. I've been at this for 32 years, and I've heard every excuse in the book for not getting involved. Having fantasies about White quarterbacks becoming the leaders of the White race is a pretty good tell that a person is a keyboard commando, not an activist.

3. This whole infatuation with White quarterbacks as the reluctant saviors of the White race presupposes that they think just like we do but lack the courage to speak out. I daresay that if you walked up to Tom Brady and began telling him about a "caste system" in the NFL and that Chris Hogan and Rex Burkhead are "caste-busters" he would probably laugh in your face. These guys are jocks, not philosopher kings. We're here to root for them, not expect them to cure the world's problems. None of them are going to "speak out" so let's get back to rooting for them as athletes.
The only celebrity I can think of who has stated anything pro White was Ted Nungent and his career was virtually in hibernation at that point. I remember him getting roasted for his viewpoint but he was virtually viewed as kook before the statements with his pro gun and libertarian views. So an NFL player would be the equivalent of the Golden Boy but of course he spouted the complete opposite while(probably) drunk on the airwaves.
 
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