Douchebag of the Week: Keith Olbermann

Tate Myre was a star junior football player for Oxford High school, playing running back and linebacker. His Twitter bio says he had a 3.9 GPA. He had just taken a recruitment visit at Toledo on 11/28.

Two days later, an Oxford High student pulled a semi-automatic gun and started firing inside the school. While everyone ran away from the shots, Myre ran towards them. He was injured attempting to disarm the shooter and died in a police cruiser while on his way to the hospital. His efforts help other classmates escape the fame fate.

Barstool’s Billy Football, a former DIII QB/WR who interned for Pardon my Take and now works at Barstool full-time, wrote a tribute blog for Myre’s heroic actions. The story spread quickly throughout social media. A petition to change the school’s stadium after Tate has been signed by tens of thousands of people. Keith Olbermann stumbled across the link, posted by Barstool’s main twitter account, and commented the following:

I understand why people are anti-Barstool. I don’t always agree with the reasoning, but I get it. However, to use the story to attack the media outlet is sickening. (There are many more adjectives I wanted to use here but I’ll keep it to the point). Olbermann has a track record of making an ass of himself and successfully took it to a whole new level.

There are extremes on both sides of the political spectrum. Those extremists can’t resist the urge to make something political, using whatever they can to criticize “the other side”. Olbermann used a heroic story of a high schooler’s sacrifice to do so. Our political landscape has become extremely dangerous in the last five years. That's not new to any of us. But, we have not been able to slow it down and bring us back together. This country is as divided as it’s ever been. Its examples like this that push each side further apart. We don’t need to make everything “political”. We should be able to appreciate the story for what it is without adding our own political twist to it.

Rest in Peace Tate Myre. I hope your story lives on forever, teaching younger kids what true bravery and sacrifice looks like.