NFL: The Ghost of Goodell's Past

For those who haven't heard, the NFL's so carefully polished image has been shattered over the past month. Troubles started when star running back Ray Rice was arrested for abuse of his fiancé, yet he was only suspended 2 games by commissioner Goodell. The commissioner took a lot of heat for his substantially soft suspension on the Raven's running back, but not as much hear as he would later receive after TMZ released the video of Rice beating the young woman. Aggressive and angry questions from every angle were fired at Goodell. The NFL office was in such turmoil and disarray, that the commissioner was kept out of public eye for 2 weeks. During this 2 week period, the NFL fell apart. Former MVP Adrian Petersok was arrested for child abuse while two other players were being charged with domestic abuse. The stars of one of the most polished, popular organizations were  tainting the leagues spotless image and the league was doing a horrible job of fixing it. As time goes on, Roger Goodell will probably either step down or get fired. However, the issues the league faces are still massive and need to be confronted. The NFL needs a leader. Who will it be?

RC Journal: If The News Ins't Interesting, Make It Up

I would like to begin my first blog by voicing my frustration with the way my classmates were represented in the C-SPAN article. The article described disinterested, ignorant, and borderline smart a** students when that is simply not the case. The students who were quoted are intelligent, active, and valuable assets to our community contrary to what the article might imply. Secondly, I would like to voice my anger directed at Bret Pancake, editor of the Rapid City Journal. Mr. Pancake wasted a perfect opportunity to interest a class of highly capable high school students in the journalism process. Instead, he elected to put himself on a pedestal and tell us that we were over reacting and need to "look in the mirror." I did not appreciate his arrogant and belittling attitude towards Andrew Montoya, who likely has a much more impressive resume than Mr. Pancake only 18 years into his life. Thirdly, I question the direction our Journal is heading as Editor Pancake himself said that he is a "heavy-handed re writer". I don't argue that often Rapid City's news may not be incredibly interesting. I don't even argue that it is a hard job to find articles to hold an audiences attention. But it seems that the Journal's approach to solving our "boring community" is to follow the lead of the Pancake man and rewrite stories so that they are more controversial and in turn, more interesting. What Waffle boy doesn't understand, however, is that our community does not find controversy interesting. Rapid City is a small, tightly knit town that enjoys heart warming stories, not stories that highlight high school student's lack of interest in "a bunch of white dudes fighting".

P.S. He wore a polka-dot tie with a striped shirt... come on man. Show some fashion.