News:Jerome Bettis admittedin an episode of “In Depth with Graham Bensinger” to selling crack and shooting a gun at people as a kid in Detroit.
Views: It’s not the side of Bettis that Steelers fans will remember. But his background is a tale heard often in the inner cities of the United States.
Bettis grew up with working parents in Detroit, and money was tight. He admitted to selling drugs as a kid along with his brother, who’s introducing him at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
“The mindset was, ‘We’re in the hood. Mom and Dad, they’re working their butts off. There’s no money around. We need to make some money,'” Bettis told Bensinger. “So we said, ‘You know what? Let’s give it a shot.’ And it was one of those moments that you regret, but at the moment, that was the only thing that was really available to us.”
Here’s a promotional clip for the episode:
Here’s the schedule for when the program airs regionally.
The timing of the reveal is interesting, considering Bettis will celebrate his greatest individual accomplishment in just a few weeks. Why bring it up now?
From another perspective, why not? Bettis is a strong community leader, and has always carried himself with dignity and pride. As a person of incredible notoriety, maybe he wants to show young people how he pulled himself out of a dangerous and violent lifestyle and became who he is today.
Along with dealing crack, Bettis admitted to other illegal actions as a kid. Asked if he had ever fired a gun at someone, Bettis responded: “Yeah. That was part of growing up in our environment, in our neighborhood. That wasn’t out of the realm of normal. When you go back, it’s nothing that I ever wanted to glorify, because I know in retrospect that it was awful. Here you are in a position to take someone’s life, and that’s never a good thing. And so as I look back on it now, I always see the wrongs that are in it and never want to bring light to it in that respect: that it was a good thing. It was the worst thing that I could’ve ever done. It was a bad decision, but it was the decision that I made and that I lived with at that moment.”
Crimes with firearms are a significant topic today, and while Bettis isn’t speaking directly to that topic, he is decrying his actions, putting strong emphasis on it being “the worst thing I could have done.”
It’s a big reveal, but this won’t affect his legacy in any way. It doesn’t change his accomplishments nor should it affect the general opinion of his enormous fan base. It should serve as a reminder of the human side of the NFL and its players, and hopefully, his admittance of it can lead to positive choices made by those who look up to him.
If one young person read about his past and learned from what he had to say about it, not remaining silent was more important than any of his 13662 yards.
ann.schiavone
7-24-2015, 12:46 pm
Why? This shows how people can rise above their circumstances and poor choices. Isn't that a good thing?
Yes it probably was. If you didn't grow up in that world you wouldn't understand. Makes me appreciate the bus even more knowing how close he was to another statistic and instead has become a good role model for kids.
Marc
7-24-2015, 12:17 pm
...said somebody who obviously didn't grow up poor in a bad section of a big city
towens1950
7-24-2015, 12:33 pm
Obviously you have no clue who I am. There are always choices .
Phantaskippy
7-24-2015, 12:41 pm
To make money. I don't think he's saying he had no choice, just that was the only thing they saw that could make money.
Morgan Yates
7-24-2015, 12:12 pm
Why shouldn't it "affect the general opinion of his enormous fan base?" No offense to him, but it very easily could and for many it will. Let's be serious.
Might I suggest a change in headline here? I took it first as a current event before clicking, then felt that was an attention grabber. I'm sure I'm not alone in that one. Good piece though!
Gambling on football games is no big deal. You only get suspended for one year for that.
Phantaskippy
7-24-2015, 12:48 pm
This is exactly the right time for this to come out.
Bettis isn't a thug, he wasn't in trouble with the law, he went to Notre Dame and you never hear bad stuff about him.
The message isn't just to young kids that they can make it, but to all of us, that often young people in bad situations aren't making bad choices because they are bad people, but because they don't see better options.
Bettis is a fine person, but where would he be if something went worse back then? He gets busted for drugs and he doesn't go to ND, he carries that stigma with him and doesn't end up who he is now.
Click bait? We're all here because we've paid money to read articles from the best writers in the business. Regardless of how a headline on this site reads, I'm clicking it no matter what.
Wingding
7-24-2015, 1:29 pm
Congratulations Matt....you win DK brown noser of year award. This headline could be tweeted out without context and it was misleading. So, someone on the outside could see it was from DK site and be compelled to go to the site. Thus....clickbait. DK changed it and it's done, but don't try and say that headline was okay because you are wrong.
Dejan Kovacevic
7-24-2015, 4:38 pm
Insulting Mat over this is a little over the top. I would judge a headline by how it appears here, not how it gets interpreted on Twitter. I don't work for Twitter. I work for this site.
sammythebull
7-24-2015, 1:02 pm
This is a bullshit headline, I got on this site because I thought DK was a pure honest reporter, I will think long and hard before I renew my membership!!!
Nice post Neal, but you used the word 'reveal' which is a verb, and not a noun and cannot act as the object of a preposition. Should be 'revelation' not 'reveal'. I see this 'all the time' with the Hockey and now others using the 'verb' 'compete' as an adjective when they say 'compete level'. A verb does not function as an adjective, when people say 'compete level'. It should be 'competitive' level.
Just a tip :). I think now I have seen reveal used this way used twice, and not necessarily by you.
This site was like scientific periodical compared to the other sites. There were less breaking and day to day news, and the content was almost exclusively thoughtfull essays. Now we are getting more "hourly" news, but there is a danger of quality dropping sharply. I think this story has no place on this site, and my remain silent comment refers more to the reporter than to the Bus.
That's silly. Bettis making such a statement ABSOLUTELY is news. If it makes you squeamish for whatever reason, that's on you and not anyone else. Bettis is a really smart guy. He wasn't tricked into saying this. He wanted it out, and he wanted it out for a reason. Good for him.
Snake
7-24-2015, 5:43 pm
I thought Bettis already admitted to selling drugs and having guns as a kid. Pretty sure it was in his autobiography "My Life In and Out of a Helmet".
It is snake, but honestly how many people read it besides looks like you and I lol.
Matt Pearce
7-24-2015, 6:18 pm
I love The Bus for his candor, and appreciate how he rose above it all. I am also glad he had immense talent that allowed him to do so. This brings me to a point: what if he was not a great football player? Could he have broken out? It's kind of a mixed message.
This is no surprise to anyone who read his book, it's detailed in there about how he grew up and the things as a child and adolescents that he over came. It's good to see a former athlete take responsibility that he did wrong as a youngster, some of the kids now and days should listen and follow what he is saying.
Unless I am also Unipress missing something, this headline has ZERO insensitivity, unless one is a PC cop. Maybe they changed the previous one to this one, as per DK"s comments of it being changed.
TheGreatOne21
7-25-2015, 8:49 am
The more I think about it, the dumber this disclosure is (not reveal :). Now this garbage of the past just before hall of fame week is taking center stage instead of his career.
Jerome Bettis spoke candidly about his oft-troubled youth in Detroit with reporter Graham Bensinger. -- YAHOO!
July 24, 2015
News/views: Bettis discusses troubled youth
by Neal Coolong • News/views • Steelers
News: Jerome Bettis admitted in an episode of “In Depth with Graham Bensinger” to selling crack and shooting a gun at people as a kid in Detroit.
Views: It’s not the side of Bettis that Steelers fans will remember. But his background is a tale heard often in the inner cities of the United States.
Bettis grew up with working parents in Detroit, and money was tight. He admitted to selling drugs as a kid along with his brother, who’s introducing him at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
“The mindset was, ‘We’re in the hood. Mom and Dad, they’re working their butts off. There’s no money around. We need to make some money,'” Bettis told Bensinger. “So we said, ‘You know what? Let’s give it a shot.’ And it was one of those moments that you regret, but at the moment, that was the only thing that was really available to us.”
Here’s a promotional clip for the episode:
Here’s the schedule for when the program airs regionally.
The timing of the reveal is interesting, considering Bettis will celebrate his greatest individual accomplishment in just a few weeks. Why bring it up now?
From another perspective, why not? Bettis is a strong community leader, and has always carried himself with dignity and pride. As a person of incredible notoriety, maybe he wants to show young people how he pulled himself out of a dangerous and violent lifestyle and became who he is today.
Along with dealing crack, Bettis admitted to other illegal actions as a kid. Asked if he had ever fired a gun at someone, Bettis responded: “Yeah. That was part of growing up in our environment, in our neighborhood. That wasn’t out of the realm of normal. When you go back, it’s nothing that I ever wanted to glorify, because I know in retrospect that it was awful. Here you are in a position to take someone’s life, and that’s never a good thing. And so as I look back on it now, I always see the wrongs that are in it and never want to bring light to it in that respect: that it was a good thing. It was the worst thing that I could’ve ever done. It was a bad decision, but it was the decision that I made and that I lived with at that moment.”
Crimes with firearms are a significant topic today, and while Bettis isn’t speaking directly to that topic, he is decrying his actions, putting strong emphasis on it being “the worst thing I could have done.”
It’s a big reveal, but this won’t affect his legacy in any way. It doesn’t change his accomplishments nor should it affect the general opinion of his enormous fan base. It should serve as a reminder of the human side of the NFL and its players, and hopefully, his admittance of it can lead to positive choices made by those who look up to him.