What To Do With Joe Mixon
It’s been one week…and I’m still not sure what to write. Last Friday, the Joe Mixon video was released to the public. Even though I was expecting to see Mixon strike Amelia Molitor, I could not hide my shock. In one week, we’ve seen the video, heard from Bob Stoops and now, Joe Mixon himself. After all of that, I’m still not sure what to say.
After seeing the last week transpire, I believe that Joe Mixon should not have hit Molitor. He said so himself. I’m not buying all the people saying since she provoked him and slapped him, she deserved it. Was Molitor implicit in what happened? She was. But she did not deserve that.
I’m also not buying the fact that he was 18 and immature. When I was in high school and a freshman in college, I saw several females provoke a male…and the male never hit her.
In my opinion, there is simply no excuse for what he did.
But Mixon is not the only one I look to in this incident. I also look to Stoops, who said that if it happened in 2016, Mixon would have been dismissed from the team. The punishment would happen today, but not two years ago? I don’t see Stoops’ logic. If hitting a woman is wrong, then it is wrong, right? If Stoops thinks it is wrong today and two years ago, shouldn’t the punishment be the same? There’s a disconnect with Stoops’ explanation that I just can’t deal with.
If Stoops would kick Mixon off the team if it happened today, then maybe he should be removed from the team anyway.
I don’t want to pass judgment on the actions of a college athlete, but I feel that this situation is much bigger than college athletics. This is a social issue. This is an issue that every male and female face, perhaps even daily. And by allowing Mixon to thrive in the public spotlight, aren’t we inadvertently saying what he did is alright?
Should we forgive him? I believe we should. Can we help him mature? I believe Stoops and several others are helping him, as they should. But listen, if I were a truck-driver pulled over for driving drunk, I would lose my job.
In Mixon’s case, couldn’t this be an incident where he loses his?
