SI Chronicles the Sad Saga of James Hardy

[billrooter]

4 minutes ago, Boyst62 said:

wow, sarcasm, that's so witty.  it's like you're saying something but it's like totally the opposite.

this reminds me of a thought i had later in the day and i hope everyone gets a chance to realize this.

 

ya know those times where a guy goes and kills someone in rage or has some ***** go down where he ***** people up then offs himself and ya think, jeez, if only that dude would have just sought help or just ended his life without victims then things would be a better option?

 

kind of feel this at the moment.  the guy had assaulted people in the last year, had shown violence and mental health issues and did not respond to help nor want it.  probably better off that he didn't hurt anyone and ended up this way than anything else.

 

but yeah, suicide is just ***** terrible.  seen enoguh first hand not to need to see it again.

Wasn't trying to be witty,  just figured your self righteous ass needed to hear that.

[Beast]

I remember that story about him pulling a gun on his dad shortly after we drafted him.

 

Outside of that catch in J’ville, I don’t remember much else about him to include his injury.

 

Hopefully his child does well. Sounds like he at least has a good mother.

[NoSaint]

6 hours ago, HomeskillitMoorman said:

While it's sad...I have to agree that it's tougher to have empathy for someone who would physically/mentally abuse their spouse and baby. Life is hard sometimes, most of us have had some dark times at some point or another. That will never be an excuse to treat other people like that though. 

 

But then there is the aspect of mental illness, and I guess we'll never know if that was a part of what he did to his wife and baby. 

 

Therein is the rub— we all carry stuff but we have no idea what his stuff is.

 

dude was 230 pounds of chemical reactions effected by infinite factors. Nothing going on excuses assualting someone else but you look at this guys story and wonder what was really going on in there.

[BillsFan130]

Oh wow. I didn’t even know he died

[boyst]

37 minutes ago, billrooter said:

Wasn't trying to be witty,  just figured your self righteous ass needed to hear that.

It wont resonate. I'm too arrogant

40 minutes ago, PetermanThrew5Picks said:

Relax man lol. It's an article about a dead dude not Boyst's virtuousity.

I have known enough good honest men who have suffered from mental health issues to commit suicide that someone like James Hardy is just a joke when compared to the likes of others.

[billrooter]

5 minutes ago, Boyst62 said:

It wont resonate. I'm too arrogant

I have known enough good honest men who have suffered from mental health issues to commit suicide that someone like James Hardy is just a joke when compared to the likes of others.

Wow such a great quality, at last you admit it I guess.

[LSHMEAB]

16 minutes ago, NoSaint said:

 

Therein is the rub— we all carry stuff but we have no idea what his stuff is.

 

dude was 230 pounds of chemical reactions effected by infinite factors. Nothing going on excuses assualting someone else but you look at this guys story and wonder what was really going on in there.

People seem to have a hard time understanding that you can have empathy for someone without excusing their behavior. While he clearly did horrible things requiring consequence, there was something going on internally that nobody can fully comprehend. 

 

The guy drowned himself in a cold ***** river. I would say he paid his debt to society and then some.

[Mr. WEO]

8 hours ago, Boyst62 said:

You wasted all that fingering 

 

 

How many times has Melania told Donald that?

[stuvian]

We make Gods out of the men who play this game yet they struggle with their lives as do we. We attribute superhuman confidence and ability to those who perform athletic feats in front of thousands not knowing about the gaps and emptiness they might carry around with them.

 

It sounds to me like sports was the one and only thing that ever worked for James Hardy and when it was taken away from him he had nothing left to stand on. Such a hard, sad fall.

11 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

No, Colin.  The truth that he made bad decisions is only a small party of the story.   

 

The whole truth, which is only hinted at in the story, is that this child spent the first fifteen years of his life, the years when just about all of his intellectual and emotional development takes place, effectively homeless.  His father was in prison and his mother often wasn't around.    He might have known where he would sleep tonight, but he had no idea where he would be sleeping in  a year.  He was poor.  It's a good bet the world he saw was filled with drugs, alcohol and violence.   

 

Over the last twenty years, there's been a lot of study that's shown that children who grow up in that kind of environment have close to no chance of making.   Yes, as adults they make bad decisions, but they do so because it's almost impossible for children living in that kind of environment to learn to make good decisions.   Think about the one thing they do tell us - that when he was in high school he'd walk into a clothing store, take what he wanted and walk out without paying and without any consequences.   Not learning lessons about honesty and good behavior when you're a kid makes it very hard to behave as an adult as though you did learn those lessons.  

 

The truth is very few guys make it out of that kind of life to have productive lives, including athletes.   The few who make it out often get their heads straightened out in prison or in the service.  Some do it because someone takes a really serious interest in them, commits to them.   That's what Michael Oher's story is about.   Whatever the truth is exactly, it's clear that those people who took him in when he was a homeless high school freshman changed his life.   Look at Marcel Dareus.   He continues to struggle trying to recover from that kind of childhood.   From our perspective, it's easy.   In truth, it's much, much more difficult to recover from that kind of a childhood than it is to learn to put a basketball in a hoop or to catch passes at Indiana.   

 

It's a tragedy.  

I think it's much tougher than you think.   When everything around you as a kid is a disaster, when it's all poverty, drugs, unemployment, sex and violence, it's very hard to develop pitive life skills.   When your life is as chaotic as his was and you begin to have success in sports, it's not surprising that you'd put all your eggs in one basket.  It's an escape, it's the only thing that gives you gratification.   But it remains extraordinarily difficult to do the rest of things in your life successfully.   

 

I'm not advocating for anything.   I don't know how to fix the lives of people who live so dysfunctionally.   But I do know that kids growing up in that environment have a very difficult time growing into responsible, positive human beings.   That world is devastating to children.   

Shaw your post is very eloquent and well considered 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

10 hours ago, Boyst62 said:

Dude was a piece of *****.  I'm not one to talk ill of the dead...

 

Does not compute.  Contradictory.

[boyst]

32 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Does not compute.  Contradictory.

I make exceptions to things sometimes. ??‍♂️

 

Just sad to realize that this dummy gets a story wrote about him and his unfortunate life and the havoc he left.

 

 

1 hour ago, billrooter said:

Wow such a great quality, at last you admit it I guess.

I'm an *****, no doubt about it.

[RaoulDuke79]

Tough life for the guy. It's puzzling to me that you need to take several tests and a physical to get a driver's license,  but any moron can reproduce at will. 

[Troll Toll]

It’s really sad from the standpoint that it sounds like he had the brain of a small child. I’ve seen people like that and I don’t think it is necessarily a parenting thing. For whatever reason some people seem to be helplessly limited in terms of mental capacity and development.

[PUNT750]

12 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

No, Colin.  The truth that he made bad decisions is only a small party of the story.   

 

The whole truth, which is only hinted at in the story, is that this child spent the first fifteen years of his life, the years when just about all of his intellectual and emotional development takes place, effectively homeless.  His father was in prison and his mother often wasn't around.    He might have known where he would sleep tonight, but he had no idea where he would be sleeping in  a year.  He was poor.  It's a good bet the world he saw was filled with drugs, alcohol and violence.   

 

Over the last twenty years, there's been a lot of study that's shown that children who grow up in that kind of environment have close to no chance of making.   Yes, as adults they make bad decisions, but they do so because it's almost impossible for children living in that kind of environment to learn to make good decisions.   Think about the one thing they do tell us - that when he was in high school he'd walk into a clothing store, take what he wanted and walk out without paying and without any consequences.   Not learning lessons about honesty and good behavior when you're a kid makes it very hard to behave as an adult as though you did learn those lessons.  

 

The truth is very few guys make it out of that kind of life to have productive lives, including athletes.   The few who make it out often get their heads straightened out in prison or in the service.  Some do it because someone takes a really serious interest in them, commits to them.   That's what Michael Oher's story is about.   Whatever the truth is exactly, it's clear that those people who took him in when he was a homeless high school freshman changed his life.   Look at Marcel Dareus.   He continues to struggle trying to recover from that kind of childhood.   From our perspective, it's easy.   In truth, it's much, much more difficult to recover from that kind of a childhood than it is to learn to put a basketball in a hoop or to catch passes at Indiana.   

 

It's a tragedy.  

I think it's much tougher than you think.   When everything around you as a kid is a disaster, when it's all poverty, drugs, unemployment, sex and violence, it's very hard to develop pitive life skills.   When your life is as chaotic as his was and you begin to have success in sports, it's not surprising that you'd put all your eggs in one basket.  It's an escape, it's the only thing that gives you gratification.   But it remains extraordinarily difficult to do the rest of things in your life successfully.   

 

I'm not advocating for anything.   I don't know how to fix the lives of people who live so dysfunctionally.   But I do know that kids growing up in that environment have a very difficult time growing into responsible, positive human beings.   That world is devastating to children.   

 

COME ON SHAW - you're making me cry - for no reason.  He was a lousy player and couldn't be coached.  Blame the NFL for making him a 'star' in the making for $1.4 mil.  He's so typical of the vast majority of NFL players today  - really minority people - that want the money but can't play by the rules of athletic or social conduct.

[Rc2catch]

I was a really big fan of his, and Limas Sweed. I was bummed to see them both flame out of the league. But Hardy’s story is for sure a sad one. Regardless it sucks to see young people fall so hard, and of course to leave the earth so early on 

[MrEpsYtown]

39 minutes ago, Rc2catch said:

I was a really big fan of his, and Limas Sweed. I was bummed to see them both flame out of the league. But Hardy’s story is for sure a sad one. Regardless it sucks to see young people fall so hard, and of course to leave the earth so early on 

 

I remember being so happy to get Hardy, but it became obvious rather quickly that our seventh rounder Stevie Johnson was the better prospect. It still took him awhile to get a shot. 

 

That was a weird draft for recievers. You had Hardy and Sweed, but also Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly. Almost every single mock draft had us taking Kelly or Thomas in the first. So many busts, but then you also had Jordy Nelson, DeSean Jackson, and Pierre Garçon (in the 6th) and Danny Amendola was an UDFA. 

[machine gun kelly]

On 11/15/2018 at 8:10 AM, MrEpsYtown said:

 

Sorry for your loss. 

 

ThNks EPS.  You’re always a class act.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

On 11/15/2018 at 8:20 PM, Boyst62 said:

I make exceptions to things sometimes. ??‍♂️

 

Fair enough

 

On 11/15/2018 at 8:20 PM, Boyst62 said:

Just sad to realize that this dummy gets a story wrote about him and his unfortunate life and the havoc he left.

 

Eh.  Writers gotta write and it's a good story, as stories go.  Sad, no doubt.

It was just the "saddest thing" I have trouble with, I kind of find my saddest emotions going to stories that are less ambiguous - like Hadiya Pendleton or the like.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-hadiya-pendleton-trial-date-20180109-story.html

 

On 11/15/2018 at 8:20 PM, Boyst62 said:

I'm an *****, no doubt about it.

 

We all have our inner *****.  I had a "Please don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" moment myself over my mother's medical care yesterday.

 

-Hapless, turning green

[TBBills Fan]

As a father, I wiped a tear reading that. Gonna hug my boy real tight when i get home

[Pre1236]

On 11/15/2018 at 10:27 AM, Da webster guy said:

 

A personal stylist for $28k.   That's honestly the most ridiculous advice you could ever give a young kid. 

 

Or anyone.

 

Nice mentorship Lil Donte.    Also James had the unfortunate experience of having to listen to Chris "You Gotsta Have a Fall Guy" Carter's ghetto advice.  

How Chris Carter's career survived that embarrassment is astonishing.