The curious case of Chris Cooley
Posted on September 16th, 2008 – 1:15 PMBy Michael Rand
Many of you are likely familiar with Redskins tight end Chris Cooley and the rather strange mistake he made on his blog over the weekend. If you are not, please allow the words of Mr. Cooley to be your guide, as posted on his blog:
All apologies from the website. We are very sorry that we showed a penis on our website all day yesterday. That was by no means our intention and we did not want to offend anyone. The picture wouldn’t have been up for so long, but we were in the middle of winning a big game. Once again, this was a complete accident and we regret not reviewing the post more closely. Thanks.
The big whoops — the appendage in question belonged to Mr. Cooley — made the Interweb rounds in a hurry and eventually made it to more mainstream outlets (we saw it on SI.com yesterday). He probably could have used a pair of his own shorts. But we digress …
The main topic of interest to us, though, is the nature of Cooley’s blog in general. While most athlete sites to this point have been dedicated to shameless shilling (inflating egos and moving merchandise) or Shameless Schilling (controlling the media message by refusing to speak anywhere but there), Cooley is new-school in that his blog seems to be more Deadspin than ESPN. Penis-gate aside (and yes, we just broke our “gate” rule because that sounds funny), Cooley also posts videos of his fantasy football league (featuring Fred Smoot!) and other things that would otherwise seem “out of bounds.”
With many other athletes seemingly petrified of what might wind up on YouTube (and perhaps rightfully so), Cooley has gone the complete opposite direction and embraced his human-ness. It’s refreshing, confusing and perhaps revolutionary. Will he jump-start a new era of young athletes ready to give fans a glimpse into their lives, thus controlling their own P.R. in a different sort of way? Will his employer, particularly in light of what happened recently, try to put the kibosh on some of his honesty? (It’s only a major media market and the most powerful and uptight league in America). It will be interesting to watch.
23 Responses to "The curious case of Chris Cooley"
human-ness
…and somewhere, a single tear rolls down Noah Webster’s cheek.
“The big whoops”
Seems like a little whoops to me
/Tommy Lee
Before losing most of my neurons to college era adulterants, I used to be a decent student..no laughing or taunts coming my way, please, but esp. good in high school where I took 4 years of Latin !! Now I ask you, who, as a non-obedient subject. (Yet this study gave me enough wordpower to blow away the verbals on the SAT….Yay!)
But, where is this going might my blogmates who despise monosyllabic posts of more than one clause ask ? Simply this..in latin “penis” means tail, so somewhere along the line we pinned the tail on the wrong side….Now, I’ll leave it to another scholar to discover how that mixup happened, or we males would always be sitting on our manhood..Yow !!!
Favorite Smoot moment during Fantasy draft:
Fred Smoot selects Steve Smith.
If Steve Smith could go up against Fred Smoot every game, he would be in the NFL Hall of Fame after 3 seasons, and the #1 overall player picked in every Fantasy draft.
RandBall reserves the right to make up words as we see fit.
As far as I’m concerned, he deserves what ever punishment he gets after putting up a monsterous 1 point in week 1.
1 point? Did he even have a catch in week 1? I had him down for 0 points.
At least his wife is hot! And he called Colt Brennan’s pick [redacted], which it was after selecting LenDale White in the 1st round.
RandBall reserves the right to make up words as we see fit.
Also reserving the right to use the royal “we”, I see.
You’ve embiggened us all, Michael.
I wonder if anyone made fun of whoever took Donovan McNabb in Cooley’s draft?
Where did those shorts come from? Did Joker find those on the floor of his bedroom? I thought only Mrs. Cooley had a pair of those?
jama
1 catch, 7 yards.
” thought only Mrs. Cooley had a pair of those?”
Not anymore.
I remember Smoot up here…loser..not only wasn’t he to be found on the field. He wasn’t on the Boat either. Surprising that anyone, esp a fantasy team, picked him up….paint a Red Target on him and send him to East L.A.
Penis-gate aside (and yes, we just broke our “gate” rule because that sounds funny)
Joker: How many of these have you run into on a weekend?
The moral of the story: If you’re going to be a [redacted] on a blog, be a literal one. (I’m looking at you, 38.)
If Dick Nixon would have known that what he did while President would lead to a blog coming up with “penis-gate” I know he never would have let that happen.
RB, when can we break into our slang for “penis” ?
jama- We should be glad he didn’t break into a “Short Pump” hotel… That would have been disastrous. Sounds more like it should be a motel.
Adidas rhymes with penis…think on that…but not too long
Rand, you got Deadspin’d. Hope that doesn’t mean I’ll end up fired from commenting due to suckiness.
There is light in every tunnel ..”Jiminy Cricket”..and in this tunnel it’s that the Penisizer, the inadvertent sighting of “the thing” can be covered and marketed with the resurgence of the Whizzinator !! Money can be made, modesty can be restored, this story is dead….
