http://www.lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/09/19/3f6aa2aecdf29 Someone pointed out a good article to me in the reveille today and I got it online...Although it had a few minor errrors(like the Georgia players didn't directly sell their rings on EBay, someone else bought it from them and did it), it still had great points. Guys like Stephen Peterman are what LSU is all about. "Stephen Peterman said he hopes his family buries his ring with him when he dies. " "It makes one wonder what winning the SEC title meant to those guys. Peterman said that nobody could ever put a price on his SEC championship ring because it represents everything he's worked so hard for. " It's true. How could those guys sell those rings? Georgia fans, please chime in on this one. It seems to me that if I was a player, I would NEVER take that ring off my finger. That not only didn't wear them, but they f*cking sold them! If I were you guys, I would call that a disgrace. Man, I would hate to see Fred Gibson get an NFL Super Bowl ring...I couldn't imagine what he would do with that...Ridiculous.
I had class with Gibson last year. He sat directly to the right of me. I love the guy mind you....but he is an idiot. Actually somewhat smart but just an idiot. I personally think its ridiculous when someone says that him selling the ring means the SEC meant nothing to him or the others. That's BS. Their work ethic and committment showed how much they wanted that title. Not a damn ring. Fred isn't exactly the most money-making kid either. He wanted money and thats was the way he could get it. Stupid? Yes. But I think some are over-exaggerating it. Also, i sent in a nice letter asking him to get his facts straight.
I don't know about all this ring hoopla. The rings belong to the players, right? There are times in a person's life when $400 or $500 is more important than a piece of jewelry. I hope I never need to sell my keepsakes, but its a right we all have if the need is there. This business about it being "an insult to the SEC" is horseshit. It shouldn't mean half a damn to the rest of us.
You can bet that the Auburn players, if they were ever fortunate enough to get one, wouldn't sell their rings! Uh, umm... oh, they don't need any more money!
Bryan Wideman...you sir are an idiot. Who are you to say what something should mean to a particular person? Who are you to be the moral conscious of another man? The fact is that every player sold their ring to try and have a little fun (they were going to use the money to finance spring break trips). Who am I or you or anyone else for that matter to tell them that they can't do that? It was their ring, their personal property. If you think that the only way to remember the SEC Championship is to look at a ring every now and then, you are behind the 8-ball to begin with. Would I sell the ring if I had one? No, but I am not a player I am a lifelong fan. I would equate what the SECC ring probably means to them to what our high school class rings mean to most of us. People pawn off their high school rings all the time when they need money, I don't see them being called disgraces to their high school graduating class whenever they do so.
So selling a ring means they have no character? That is probably the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
EVER.............I think not........you do live in Ga. right......... Mementos like that represent a period in ones life..............a weekend will be forgotten by the next weeekend...........I think what it speaks to is a players maturity..................what's more important to you a period of your life that ended in reaching your goals...............or a week of partys?????????????????????
Its at least some pretty good evidence of it. Of course they CAN sell the ring. Nobody's ever suggested that you don't have the right to sell your own property (other than the NCAA, but that's another issue entirely), but that is completely beside the point. Its not a legal question, its an ethical one. Those players have been criticized because that ring didn't mean more to them than the price of a Spring Break trip. So don't say "I wouldn't do it, but it doesn't bother me if he did." Why wouldn't you do it? Probably because the ring would also mean something to you. So if you can see that it has some significance, why doesn't it bother you that these players apparently didn't?
Because I am not them. If it doesn't mean to them what it means to me, they aren't at fault for that. They are grown men, capable of making their own decisions and setting their own priorities. I doubt any of them waited the 20 years for UGA to win the SEC Championship like I did. Them selling their rings does not mean that they don't appreciate their accomplishment. They just see everyone else getting to go out of town on a spring break trip so they would like to go have a little fun too. Unfortunately, they aren't allowed to have jobs while in school so they have to get $$$ some other way. Now if there family is too poor to send them off to the beach for a week, they have to look at other ways of getting cash, and that is what they did. Like I said, not something I would do, but I am not in the deprived financial position that most of them are.
