Let's talk Steelers culture real quick..

[diver]

Sad, but true.

If you are "gifted" you receive "gifts". That is made abundantly clear to everyone else pretty much from middle school on.

Why I remember sitting in In School Suspension for taking the day off for Sr. Skip Day. Yep, sanctioned Sr. Skip Day in school. My mother had even called in for me and said I'd be out that day. Hell I'd even gone off with the School Student Body President so we could get some award plaques for the upcoming award day. But, nonetheless, there we sat in I.S.S.

Do you suppose the star athlete in the school, who had missed God-only-knows how many days had ever sat a minute in I.S.S. for his skipped days?

No. He had not.

The rules are very clear. There are none for the athletes. Until there are and then the athletes go all ape-**** crazy trying to figure out why there are suddenly these ridiculous unrealistic expectations that no reasonable person could ever live up to.

Life is about a lot of different lessons for different people. What I mean by that is there is a lesson to be learned for all of us in what you just wrote. That lesson is that if you are not special in some way, and let's be honest, most of us are not, you have to keep your **** together. You aren't getting any breaks. It is a great lesson to learn. It is never going to change, either. I think we need to teach kids this lesson as much as possible. Maybe then we can avoid some of the narcissistic culture we have going on right now.

I learned the lesson in the 9th grade. I didn't play football until then, and when I started for some reason I was pretty successful right out of the shoot. Got to thinking I was hot ****. I noticed some of the older good players seemed to be able to get a little cocky with this one teacher, so naturally I tried to. Guy jacked my *** up in front of the whole class. The lesson for me was that some people can get away with that stuff, but not me.