"I'm With The Steelers"

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2860426&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos2

I thought that this story was just strange. I pretty much found myself laughing at the women being affected by the Steelers impersonator. On one hand, the women were definitely taken advantage of and were lied to by Jackson. They were led to believe something about someone and suffered emotional damage from the entire incident.

However, on the other hand, a large part of the fault from the entire story lies with the women. For one thing, it seems that the majority of the damage suffered was emotional and financial and not physical. Other than the one woman who became uncomfortable when he tried to kiss her, it does not seem like he was trying to take advantage of the women in a sexual manner.

Therefore, how exactly could they possibly be that naive to be taken advantage of? To meet a person in a bar or restaurant claiming to be a professional football player is one thing. It is an entirely different thing to agree to see that person again or to go out with him. Just because some guy is kind of big and says he plays football does not mean he's telling the truth. First, once these women met someone claiming to be a Steeler, they probably should have take the twenty seconds it would have take to look on Steeler.com or ESPN.com player profile page. It really would not be that hard to see that the man that they met was not who he was claiming to be. For one thing, Pittsburgh is one of those cities that worships its football team, similar to Green Bay or Dallas. Are you telling me that there is not one male in these women's lives that they could've gone to and asked if Jackson was a real professional football player?? I mean, really? No one? Not a relative, friend, co-worker, no one? Take the twenty seconds and do your research, lady!!!

(And for another thing, it's one thing for Jackson to claim he is Jerame Tuman, a bum third string tight end from a crappy football school known as the University of Michigan, or Brian St. Pierre, a backup quarterback who has thrown exactly 1 pass in his career, but how exactly did Jackson think that he was going to convince people that he was Ben Roethlisberger, who, among other things, has been a first round pick, won numerous awards, been the winning quarterback on a Super Bowl champion, been all over the news for injuries, been on the cover of Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine, and has his face plastered all over the city of Pittsburgh for local advertisements??? If he really wanted to be a starter, maybe he shouldn't have chosen the most famous player on the team. Just be a punter or holder or something. No one knows what they look like. Or say you're the third-down back. Call me crazy, but people know who their starting quarterback is)

Second, how exactly do you lend someone money if you have no idea who they are??? When you start talking about loaning a friend thousands of dollars, you better know that person like the back of your hand. I mean, I've got friends that I have known since I was 8, and I get mad about loaning them a twenty bucks. Call me cheap, but if we start talking about thousands of dollars, I better be holding something of theirs in case they don't pay me back. So, this lady has this guy that she met in a bar and who constantly acts shady and isn't reliable at all, but she trusts him with a thousand dollars?!?!?! I mean, come on. Give me her number - I'm broke as a joke. I'll tell her I'm Michael Vick. Maybe, she'll believe me.

Third, there are so many cases where women try to get close to professional athletes to try to mooch money off of them for clothes and cars, it's nice to finally see these gold-diggers get what they had coming to them....OK, not really, but you have to admit that these women saw this "professional football player" as their opportunity to get rich and to tell their friends they were dating someone famous. They saw his car and his supposed g-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s life and thought they could get a piece of the action. I guarantee that the woman who loaned Jackson 4 G's was doing it just so that she could her own share when he finally got a big contract (Though I am not sure how large of a contract a fat, slow tight end from U-M would get).

I just have trouble having sympathy for these women when no physical damage was done to them and when they basically set themselves up to get hurt. I agree with the Pittsburgh natives who think that the entire story is funny and that women look pretty naive and stupid to me. I enjoyed reading this article because it helped me realize how dumb some people truly are ha.