MVN - Most Valuable Network

A Child, A Plastic Bag, and Darrion Scott: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

I don’t think ex-Viking defensive end Darrion Scott will be winning a “Father of the Year” award anytime soon. Based on this latest report about his arrest for assault and malicious punishment of a child, Scott is a sick, twisted individual who shouldn’t be allowed within 1,000 miles of a child:

Former Vikings defensive end Darrion Scott was charged today with assaulting his son last week by holding a plastic dry cleaning bag over the kicking and crying boy’s head in his Eden Prairie townhome.

According to the criminal complaint filed today in Hennepin County District Court: The boy’s mother heard the boy’s muffled cries and found Scott holding the bag over the boy’s head on April 26. She said the boy was on his back on the floor, his legs kicking and the Scott was holding the bag tightly around the boy’s neck.

But wait! There’s a perfectly good reason for this! It was just a game!

Scott, 26, told police the two were playing with the bag, and he wanted to see whether the boy could get the bag off his head by himself.

Are. You. F***ing. Kidding. Me.

Remember the statement made by Tim DiPiero, Scott’s agent? You know, the one where DiPiero actually wrote this sentence: “Anyone who knows Darrion knows him to be a ‘big teddy bear’ type of guy.” Well, if ‘big teddy bears’ are known to suffocate children with plastic bags and then cover their ass by claiming it was all simply a game, then yes, you could appropriately characterize Darrion as a ‘big teddy bear.’

Elsewhere, ESPN The Magazine released their annual Fan Satisfaction Rankings of the 122 teams in the four major sports leagues, with the Vikings ranked as the 110th best team in professional sports for what they give back to the fans. Last year, the Vikes were ranked 119th — we’re movin’ on up, baby!

The categories of “coaching,” “fan relations,” and “stadium experience” killed the team’s ranking. Coaching and stadium experience need no explanation, but the fan relations category should probably be clarified: It is defined by the magazine as “Ease of access to players, coaches & management.”

And, indeed, the organization probably deserves its 116/122 ranking for fan relations. I’ve completely given up any attempts to score interviews with Viking players for this blog — I speak from experience when I state that the process of lining up player interviews is absolutely befuddling for someone who isn’t in the “mainstream media” and who doesn’t have any “connections.” (I realize I’m a lowly blogger, but I can’t get an interview with Todd Lowber? Give me a freaking break.)

Personal b*tching aside, it’s also clear that this organization places a low priority on having its players make public appearances. Take a look at the player appearance schedule on Vikings.com…lo and behold, it’s blank! What, you can’t get Chad Greenway to take a picture or two once in a while?

To clarify, I’m not knocking the charity work the players do; I’m simply arguing that the players and coaches could hardly be more distant from the average folks in the community. By no means am I claiming that the players and coaches need to act like they’re “one of us” — I’m just saying that, when your player appearance calender is blank, there’s an issue. When there is scant evidence of participation in the community by an organization, there’s an issue.

The Vikings will sell out every single home game next season. Ticket sales and television ratings have rarely been concerns for them. But from a public relations standpoint, they could be doing much better.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.