Just Here So I Won't Get Fined

I never cared for sports or the NFL until 2014. I joined the Navy in August of 2013, graduated boot camp on October 18, 2013, my 21st birthday, then moved down to Texas to complete another 6 months of training to become a medic. I was constantly busy, so I definitely wasn’t paying attention to what was happening in the NFL and the success of the team that represented my city, the Seattle Seahawks. During the 2013 NFL season, the Seahawks were a dominating team, their victories led them to winning the playoffs and eventually becoming Super Bowl contenders against the Denver Broncos. I wasn’t interested in any of this. What finally caught my attention though was the teams star running back at the time, Marshawn Lynch. I kept seeing his name come up whenever I read the news, he didn’t seem to like being interviewed, gave short answers, or didn’t say anything at all. This was perplexing me, why the hell was he like that? He made it to the ultimate match of his sport, he should be ecstatic to talk about it. Was he really just some rude guy like the media kept saying? As I followed the stories on Marshawn, I looked up some of his highlights as well. I didn’t understand a thing about football, but this guy’s job was to run through and over people, and it was clear to me that he was DAMN good at it. Eventually, during a media day interview before Super Bowl XLVIII, Marshawn, nicknamed Beastmode, talked with NFL legend Deion Sanders, and finally opened up a bit out of respect to another great player. During this interview, Deion asked Beastmode about his silence towards the media. This prompted a simple and powerful response from Marshawn, “I’m Just Bout’ That Action, Boss”. This interview is what made me begin following the NFL, specifically the Seahawks and Marshawn Lynch. Beastmode was such an interesting character to me, he had such tenacity and determination when playing. He rarely spoke with the media, but when he did, he was selfless, humble and spoke of the accomplishments of the team, not his own. Beast didn’t apologize for how he appeared in the media, he had a quiet and professional relationship with them. I kept up with the NFL over the years, enjoying the games more but always a fan of Marshawn, even keeping up with what he was doing after his initial retirement in 2016. He came out of retirement in 2017 to play with his hometown team, the Oakland Raiders, when a position opened up for one season. After seeming to retire again, he sat down for an interview with Matt Barnes, an acclaimed NBA star turned interviewer. It was this interview with Matt Barnes in 2018 that Beastmode spoke candidly about his experiences in the NFL and views on the media.

One of the job obligations for professional athletes is to cooperate with the media. The sports media create stories, inform the audience and help bring in revenue for the sports they cover. Unfortunately, that tends to lead to some meager interviews with lousy questions that annoy players, like Marshawn Lynch. After conducting interviews and seeing how the media criticized his character, Marshawn realized that the media wasn’t his friend, nor anyone else’s. They were there to write stories, sometimes ridiculous and out of context, in order to gain attention. They didn’t care how it affected the athlete, as long as they received their views.

In July 2018, a Youtube video interview was released with former NBA star Matt Barnes interviewing his old friend Marshawn Lynch. The Youtube channel called, Uninterrupted, is an athlete empowerment brand founded by NBA star Lebron James. The brand creates content from the athletes perspective, giving the athletes themselves the power to tell their own unfiltered stories with no bullshit. In the interview, they talk about Marshawn’s upbringing, how he came to be who he is now, and memorable moments from his career in the NFL. The conversation is natural, Marshawn is relaxed, the perfect music is playing in the background, and Matt Barnes knows how to talk to Beastmode in a way that average reporters and interviewers aren’t capable of.

“What I learned through it was not that the trouble was the shit that followed me, it was the mother fuckers who was hating on me and what they said had followed me. Then I realized it was the media who was doing that kind of shit”

This statement from Lynch, from his interview with Matt Barnes, describes how he came to discover that the media didn’t actually care for him as a person. Reporters would sit down with him and seem to be friendly, but afterwards they’d write articles attacking him for reasons he couldn’t understand until he matured. This realization led Marshawn to interact less with the media as he matured in his career. There have been moments during his time in the NFL where he was silent towards the media, or even gave one word answers or phrases such as the amazing “YEAH” interview. In this post game interview, Marshawn responds to almost every question the reporters ask with “Yeah”, only breaking character to mention a fundraiser dinner he was having that benefitted inner city youth of Oakland, and also to correct an interviewer on the rapper he was listening to before the game, Lil’ Boosie. This interview to me alone is a great depiction of how the media tried to portray athletes, and specifically Marshawn Lynch at the time. They asked him many meaningless and shallow questions during this interview to try to get stories, but he refused to acknowledge any of them or give them things to write about. This also reveals to the audience what kind of person Marshawn is, he doesn’t care about giving the media a story to write about, but he did throw in a plug for his fundraiser to benefit underprivileged youth in his hometown through his foundation. Then of course another infamous and hilarious interview with Marshawn is his 2015 Super Bowl media day interview where he replies to every question with “I’m just here so I won’t get fined”.

“My whole upbringing has been to put other people in the position to shine, and to have success, and to be great at what it is they do”

Although professional athletes may be obligated to speak to the media as part of their job, the media often does a poor job of reflecting the athlete as a person, focusing more on the negatives in attempts to write stories that they deem more interesting. Marshawn Lynch is one athlete who has been demonized by the media, who tried to assassinate his character and portray him in a negative light. Marshawn was intelligent enough to realize this and stopped allowing the media to portray him in that kind of way. Talking to the media wasn’t in his interest, he’s about action. He was an incredibly talented player during his time in the NFL, continues to serve others and take care of his community through his FAM1ST organization. While he was still active in the NFL, most media attempted to portray him negatively, but his actions are what were able to overpower the nonsense they were releasing about him. Stories about professional athletes should be taken with a grain of salt, the media doesn’t always tend to treat athletes fair and as human beings, sometimes they just want to sell their stories.