Jets’ Feely taking heat over comments he made about Henry’s death
Jets kicker Jay Feely is receiving criticism for comments he made on his Twitter page following the recent death of Bengals wideout Chris Henry.
From Mike Freeman of CBSSports.com:
In the moments following the announcement of the sad end of a sad life, New York Jets kicker Jay Feely, who has political aspirations, made some curious statements on Twitter.
“You hope that these tragic circumstances will wake people to the reality that our actions have real consequences,” Feely tweeted.
What the hell was Feely trying to say? It sounded condescending and, frankly, somewhat inappropriate. The news of Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry’s death was fresh (literally minutes old) and Feely — who on an earlier tweet did wish Henry’s family well — was nevertheless entering preachy mode in the immediate aftermath of a tragic accident.
Feely added this Tweet later: “Chris Henry seemed to have turned his life around. But, you can’t live on the brink of destruction without inevitably falling off the ledge.”
He made a reference to Henry falling off a ledge just a short time after Henry was killed while falling off the back of a moving vehicle.
No, not the best choice of Tweeting words.
And then Feely Tweeted: “younger generation needs to learn the lesson that our choices have implications and those implications often entail negative consequences.”
“Spoke from the heart. My cousin died a couple of weeks ago under similar circumstances. He was finally on right path…
“Terrible choice of words with ‘falling of ledge’ I truly didn’t mean to refer to his death. I apologized for the poor wording & callousness…
“I desired to implore people to help loved ones understand that choices create a path for our lives. It’s very hard to get off the wrong path.”
This is when people need to step back and look at someone’s intentions, rather than just what they said or wrote. Feely obviously didn’t mean any harm in what he said; he was just trying to advocate that people think about their actions and the consequences of those actions.
The problem is that Feely had horrible timing. He did wind up sounding condescending because he waited a millisecond after Henry died to get on his soapbox. He should have let the grieving process start before he started pointing out potential lessons that everyone could take away from Henry’s life.
In an ironic twist, Feely should have thought about his actions and the consequences of his actions before posting what he did on his Twitter page.
Hey Freeman, don’t be part of the problem. Yeah, maybe Feely could have used a better choice of words, but the ones he used were the unfortunate truth.
Political correctness run amuck dictates that we can’t speak the truth regardless how obvious it might be. You have to decide in your mind whether it’s more important for Feely to shut up so as not to risk making Henry’s family feel bad at a rough time, or if it’s better to use the emotion of the tragedy to attempt to make a point to others who might find themselves in the same position as Henry.
Tim, I can’t agree with you more. It is time to stop coddling these players. How many more have to wind up in jail, broke or dead before the idea of doing the right thing gets through.
I understand that this kid died and as a father I feel really bad about that but the message is clear…Wake up people
We need more guys to take a stand and open their mouths and not look the other way. That’s what real friends do, they help and to bad Tiger didn’t have a few….
The truth sets us free, but unfortunately, people would rather be bound by lies. C. Henry was bound by lies, and it cost him his life. And rather than simply state the obvious, we have to pick and choose words, so as not to offend??
I don’t owe the PC police a thing! Henry lived by the sword and he died the same way, and if his family doesnt like to hear that, THEY SHOULD HAVE INTERVENED!!!
At what point do you know you’ve atoned for your previous sins and that you are no longer in danger of dying in a freak accident? Feely obvious says that Henry and his cousin were on the “right path” yet their prior choices led to their current deaths. Is there a chart someone can point me to that tells me the levels of freak accidental deaths resulting from prior sinful acts? I’d like to know what to expect!
A freak accident? You’re kidding, right? It might be considered a freak accident if he never had any problems in his personal life. But trouble doesn’t “follow” people like him, they create the situations themselves, and in his case, it finally caught up with him. I think that’s what Feely was trying to say. Poor timing and choice of words? Yes. But like Big Steinny said, more guys should speak out about the “bad seeds” in their sport. Make an example of this situation and hopefully people will pay attention and clean up their acts before it’s too late.
And his gold-digger of a fiance has to be thinking someone just stole her winning lotto ticket.
Since when is it only “politically correct” to show respect for the dead? Jesus, you shit eaters need to learn some compassion. To respond to the first comment, yes it is better to respect the dead man’s family than to call attention to yourself through the bullshit justification that it ‘might help someone somewhere somehow in the same position.’ I guess Feely has a large twitter following among people on ‘the wrong path?’
So what’s a good time to bring up the issue? A week or two later when nobody cares or while the topic is still hot (or the body luke warm)? Oh sorry…that was insensitive and politically incorrect.
Yes, this is a PC issue. Feely did show respect for the dead in his comments, then tried to include a lesson to his readers. How is that disrespectful? I applaud those who speak their mind as as Big Steinny said, maybe if someone spoke their mind and acted like a real friend instead of “yes men”, some of these athletes might be able to fix their lives.