Last week, there were
two disgusting events that occurred in US professional sports. There was the
Pacers-Pistons fan-player brawl on Friday, November 19, which I’ll get to
later. And there was the Terrell Owens-Edie Britt encounter that occurred
before the November 15 Monday Night Football game between the Eagles and
Cowboys.

Owens was leaving the
locker room to play some football when the steamy Britt, from TV’s Desperate Housewives, prostituted
herself wearing just a fluffy white towel. The Eagles wide receiver checked her
out, but rejected her advances. So Britt grew more desperate and suddenly
de-toweled to show Owens the rest of her wares. He grinned and said his team
would have to win without him.

Now are we really
going to stand for that? Britt wore no ID badge, pass, or game credential; just
a towel, a skinny gold necklace with a cross on it, and some batting eyelashes.
Yet, she was right there inside an NFL locker room. I don’t know how that happened.
Frankly, it’s downright disgusting, and it should scare all of us.

When I covered the Bills,
there was always a locker-room security officer who checked the passes of every
living being attempting to go inside. Press-box security wasn’t quite as good.
One time, I was down in the post-game locker room and some drunken fan ran
inside the press box and stole my laptop. Apparently, a guard chased him into
the women’s restroom, where he dumped the laptop in the garbage. I got it back,
thanks to WHAM radio reporter Gene Battaglia’s crack detective work, but now
you understand why I’m particularly sensitive to security breaches.

If we’re to win the
war on terror, it’s imperative we first make our NFL locker rooms secure from
nude women. I imagine Britt used her towel antics to gain locker-room access in
the first place. She obviously had very little problem bypassing Dallas
security with her clever plan.

Generally, the Dallas
Cowboys bring out the resourcefulness in people. In 1978, a girl named Debbie
made the Cowboys’ cheerleading squad, but lacked the money to actually travel
to Dallas to be part of the squad. So she and her friends concocted a fund-raising
scheme that culminated with Debbie dressing up as a Cowboys cheerleader and having
relations with her boss, Mr. Greenfield, who was dressed as a football player.
Mr. Greenfield then paid for the girls’ trip to Big D.

I respect that kind
of American ingenuity. The problem is that the terrorists are paying attention.
If they see that they can get by security wearing nothing but a towel, or if
they can seduce people while wearing a Cowboys cheerleading outfit, by golly,
they’re going to do it. And we can’t fall for that.

As for Owens, he
played that night and scored twice. Three times if you count Edie.

Many, of course, were disgusted by the Owens-Britt tryst for moral reasons. They compared it to
Justin Timberlake removing Janet Jackson’s bra cup and displaying that famous
nipple of hers during the last Super Bowl. Now I’ve traveled a great mental
distance to understand where they’re coming from and I’ve concluded that a few
more of these instances will have us all burning in hell.

So this, too, has to
stop. We cannot stand for moral value assaults any longer. These infractions
— such as the Janet Jackson incident, the Owens-Britt incident, even the
Pacers-Pistons fan-player brawl — debase a human being’s innate, natural
decency.

Americans are
obviously becoming more religious, as this month’s election seemed to confirm.
With any luck, we’ll soon be as advanced as the believers in the Middle East.
What I’d like to see is a return to our roots. FCC fines, public outcries, and
player suspensions don’t do anything to diminish the lewdness and crudeness of
our times.

Justin Timberlake,
Janet Jackson, Terrell Owens, Edie Britt, and the Pacers and Pistons should all
be burned at the stake. Then they’ll never be able to assault our values again.
And it will send a message to everyone; a message that we won’t stand for being
held hostage and forced to watch the sick garbage that our televisions spew at
us.

We must draw the
line, and the line starts at the stake. It might be a long line, but we must do
whatever it takes to save our mortal souls.

Of course, we can
just turn off the TV.

Oh. Problem solved.

This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2004.