By Danielle McCartan (@CoachMcCartan and www.facebook.com/CoachMcCartan)
BERGEN COUNTY, N.J. – Where in the world is New York Jets linebacker Darron Lee? Five days ago, channeling his inner Kanye West, Lee initiated an early morning Twitter rant with, seemingly, no cohesiveness and no coherent argument. While it was happening, I was able to screen shot some of the tweets, which have since been deleted. Actually, all of Lee’s tweets dating back to 2012 have been deleted.
Giving his 122,000 followers about an hours’ worth of notice, Lee tweeted, accompanied by angry emojis: “MAN, IM HEATED”. Then, clearly annoyed, he sent off a tweet about “white people” performing the dance to the hit song “Watch me (Whip/Nae Nae)” by Silentó, a black rapper. According to Lee, white people simply performing that dance does not equate to inter-racial understanding. By the way, “Watch me (Whip/Nae Nae)” was released over a year ago: on January 26, 2015. Lee is approximately 364 days late to the hit dance craze.
“Guys I’m not ranting, I’m just keeping it real like Donny Trumpet” had some followers questioning whether or not Lee’s account was hacked. I researched “Donny Trumpet” and came up with a music group: “Donnie” Trumpet and the Social Experiment. Was Lee’s Twitter rant a social experiment? Was his account hacked by this music group? Doubtful. They would not spell their lead singer’s name incorrectly.
As a high school coach, I preach to my players never to put something on social media, as that message will be present forever… even if you delete it. Case in point: my screenshots of Lee’s tweets. I tried to help him, reminding him of the fact these words will be there for eternity. Lee responded with: “Our president said whatever he wanted and won. Hop. Off”. Clearly, this had evolved into a racially charged, politically motivated thread that I did not want to be a part of. At this point, I replied that I was only hoping to help him, and, I tagged his mother in my response so that she could try to stop him before he really went off the deep end. The last thing Jets Nation wants is their young standout linebacker possibly being under scrutiny from the team and from the league.
Lee, a 22 year-old, former first-round draft pick, is entering his second season with the New York Jets, after a successful rookie season. He played in 12 games, registering 45 tackles and 1 sack.
Expressing oneself over Twitter, with a 140 character limit, is not the best, most effective method to convey a point of view. My repeated attempts from last Friday to talk with Darron Lee about this incident (via Twitter) have gone unreturned.
I dissected the entire Darron Lee and New York Jets drama on my sports talk radio show, 60 Minute Overtime (#60MinOT), on Sunday January 29, 2017.
Click below to listen or take it to go on iTunes (free).
60 Minute Overtime airs every Sunday at 11am EST on WRPR 90.3FM and video streams live on Facebook and on Periscope (@CoachMcCartan).
Pro Sports Rundown 