All That and a Bag of Mail

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It’s Friday and I’m knocking out the mailbag from Rosemary Beach before I leave to spend the rest of the weekend with my family.

So I hope all of you are having good Fridays — see what I did there! — and have fun weekends with your families.

I’ve spent the past week on 30A — where we officially closed on a beach place down here — but I know many of you will be doing what I did for the past decade, traveling to the beach with your friends and family. And if you’re doing that make sure that you check out my friends at 30acottages.com. They can put you in a mansion right on the beach or in a small condo several blocks from the beach. Basically, no matter what you need, they’ve got you covered. So check them out today. Tell them Outkick sent you and save 5%. 

Jeremy writes:

“Clay, been in Orlando all week and hit Disney and Universal. Can someone please explain to me what man would wear a whole family set of t-shirts?  You know, the ones where there are Mickey ears and ‘Dad’ or ‘son’ below. I get the kids and maybe even mom, but have these men lost all self respect? I wouldn’t be caught dead in the ‘Dad’ shirt but they’re everywhere! Am I way off here?!”

I suspect dad is losing the two fronted war here, his kids are begging him to wear it because everyone else is wearing it and his wife is probably more likely to sleep with him if he wears it too.

So he just gives in.

Personally, I wouldn’t wear the shirt. But if my wife promised to sleep with me every night on vacation and the kids were begging me to do it, would I do it? I might.

The thing is, if I did it I’d have to be comfortable with that tshirt going up on social media because there would be a ton of Outkick people at Disney who saw me and either took a clandestine photo of me and made fun of me on Twitter or wanted a picture and Tweeted it out after I posed with them.

Ultimately I think this would probably make me more likable because people would see it and think, “That poor bastard Clay Travis is just like every other dad in the country, he has no control over what happens in his household.”

So I think that’s the ultimate reason this happens, dad ranks dead last when it comes to making decisions in most families.

Bailey writes:

“Hey Clay,

Do you think there is any chance Johnny Manziel finds his way to an NFL roster this year?”

Yeah, I think he’ll be on an NFL roster at some point this year, even if it’s just an NFL training camp roster. He’s still only 25 years old. Which is insane to think about when you contemplate everything he’s been through in his life and how long he’s been a national celebrity.

Manziel’s still younger than Aaron Rodgers was when he took over for Bret Favre and he’s only six months older than Dak Prescott. Crazily, he’s the same age right now that I was when I started writing online back in 2004.

Basically, he’s incredibly young.

Until you’re in your upper 20’s NFL teams will take chances on you — if you have talent — and they think you might be a diamond in the rough. What’s the risk/reward now? Worst case scenario Manziel sucks and relapses into drug and alcohol issues. And if that happens is anyone going to blame you for giving him another chance?

Of course not.

Honestly, if Colin Kaepernick would just come out right now and say, “I don’t regret my protest, but I regret the fact that I chose to do it by kneeling for the national anthem and that became the focus as opposed to the political causes I was fighting for. If a team signs me I’m going to donate my entire first year salary to political causes I believe in, but I will now stand for the national anthem and won’t make political statements in my uniform on the field. I just want to play football again.”

Boom, I think someone would sign him.

I really do.

Hell, I might even be willing to do it if I owned a team and if he assured me he was going to stick to his word.

And I’d certainly praise that stance.

Angus writes:

“So the Saints fired cheerleader Bailey Davis because she shared a fairly modest photo of herself in a teddy on Instagram. They showed the photo on morning local news, it was totally PG. No nipples, no ass, certainly no Saints logo.
Then I see this from the Saints’ handbook for cheerleaders:

Cheerleaders are told not to dine in the same restaurant as players, or speak to them in any detail. If a Saints cheerleader enters a restaurant and a player is already there, she must leave. If a cheerleader is in a restaurant and a player arrives afterward, she must leave. 

What in the name of Susan B. Anthony is going on with these damn Sharia-type rules? How are NFL teams allowed to treat these women like chattel? Where are the marches of angry pussy-hat wearing feminists when there’s some serious shit to get outraged about?
Just blows my mind that in 2018 NFL teams are allowed to set and enforce a code of conduct that would’ve had June Cleaver breaking her foot off in Ward’s ass had he tried this shit.”
Bailey Davis is the blonde girl up top and this is in her Instagram account. (Seriously, the reason I don’t have an Instagram account is because I’d just sit around all day looking at hot girl pictures. Which is like 95% of the entire market cap value for Instagram.)

Brownie to my blondie ? #saintsgameday #salutetoservice #military

A post shared by Bailey Davis (@jacalynbailey) on

The reason this rule exists is because the NFL cheerleading squad is not popular with NFL player wives who see these girls as potential high end sexual competition. So the NFL teams do everything they can to limit player and cheerleader interaction.
When my wife was a Titans cheerleader the rules were just like this, insanely draconian.
My wife got an entire binder full of rules and regulations. Among them, and this was in 2003 and 2004, was that you couldn’t go to certain Nashville bars at all — and it was extensive, like twenty places they weren’t supposed to go. Many of which weren’t even controversial, it wasn’t like it was limited to strip clubs, it was regular bars downtown. Mind you, this wasn’t that you couldn’t go to the bar in cheerleader gear, this was that you couldn’t go in your private life at all. They had the same rule about being required to leave if you saw a player in a bar or restaurant you were in and you were also forbidden, under penalty of firing, from ever dating a player.
So their restriction was pretty extensive.
When my wife asked why all these rules existed, she was told to keep player’s wives happy. Granted, I could see this turning into a controversy at some point, but the rules are actually designed to keep players — and their families — out of trouble with team employees via the cheerleading squad.
This wasn’t even the most shocking thing to me about being an NFL cheerleader, it was how little money you made for doing it. My wife made like $100 a game and her total income from the Titans was less than $5k. NFL teams are multi-billion dollar enterprises, would it really be that bad for them to pay thirty girls $40k each? That would cost them $1.2 million each. That’s honestly money I’d think the squads could recoup in appearance fees and general community goodwill.
Honestly, I keep waiting for the PC police to come after cheerleading in general. How dare teams employ good looking women who are scantily clad to cheer on highly paid men? It’s sexist! (Even if, you know, hundreds of girls audition every year to sign up for these exact offers.)
And, by the way, getting fired by the Saints is the best thing that has ever happened to this girl. She was one of several thousand NFL cheerleaders before, all of whom are relatively anonymous nationwide, now she’s everywhere and she might be able to actually make some real money.
Good for her.
Jordan writes:
 
“How do I convince my girlfriend that if your wife doesn’t get offended by the things you say, she shouldn’t either?”
I’m a bit confused here, do you mean your girlfriend shouldn’t get offended by me either because my wife isn’t or your girlfriend shouldn’t get offended by what you say because what you say is similar to what I say?
Regardless, I think the answer is, if you’re dating a girl who gets offended by your opinion on things then you should be dating another girl. I’m serious, I don’t care how hot she is, that would be miserable. Because when you break it down the person who is claiming that they are offended by something is trying to dictate what you can and can’t say, watch, read or believe.
That’s what totalitarians do.
The fact that we’ve enabled people to say, “I’m offended,” and treat that like a badge of honor in this country is a total affront to everything I believe in. #dbap
As for my life, my wife’s a bit of a unicorn, she’s smoking hot, really smart, only produces male heirs and she’s virtually impossible to offend. Also, not crazy. (At least not that I can tell after nearly 15 years of marriage.)
But, to my credit, I also self selected for this.
I didn’t have any interest in dating women who wanted to change me, my lifestyle, or my personality. I was happy with who I was. And I think if you’re happy with who you are, you’re probably going to attract strong, smart, confident women because most strong, smart, confident women don’t want to date pussies. Because they know they’ll walk all over them.
And also because beta male pussies aren’t sexually attractive.
Now, all women want to change men in some ways — every woman looks at a man as a work in progress, whereas most men look at their girlfriends as finished products — but the key is you can’t get with a woman who wants you to completely fit the picture she has drafted of what her husband will be because she’s too controlling and your life will be miserable.
Think about it, how much time, as a guy, have you spent thinking about your wedding or your marital life? Probably not very much. Most girls, on the other hand, literally started playing house when they were two years old. Every six year old girl has thought about and planned her wedding day. She may even know what the table arrangement would look like.
Most six year old boys don’t even know there are tables involved in most weddings.
Marty writes:
“Love the show!  How come whenever the students from Parkland say something political/controversial it’s changing the world but when someone disagrees its “harassing school shooting survivors.”
The reason that happens is because once you establish a different standard of acceptable speech for these kids based on their past experience then the high school kids can’t be effectively argued with and their political point is allowed to emerge unchallenged. Or, as frequently happens in media today, the students are praised because of their background, but you aren’t allowed to challenge them because of their background.
So it’s an uneven political battleground.
The same things happen with athletes. I can’t tell you the number of times when I take issue with an athlete’s political opinion someone Tweets me, “Shut up! They do more than you! They’re trying to change the world! They’re athletes taking a stand!” Even if, as is usually the case, that stand is banal, trite and lacking in all coherent political truth.
Many people think when it comes to athletes that free speech is a one way street, they have it, but their critics don’t.
Think about two controversies Laura Ingraham has been involved in over the past couple of months — she criticized LeBron James — telling him to shut up and dribble after his cliched political commentary — and the high school kids and people lost their minds. on both But she’s ripped how many Democratic politicians and activists and no one even blinks?
I think Ingraham is actually being consistent here, she’s treating everyone, LeBron and the high school kids, the same way she would Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Elizabeth Warren. If you’re involved in politics and she disagrees with you, she’s going to attack you and your beliefs.
You may not agree with her methods, but she’s consistent.
My belief is if you enter into the political arena you should be treated the same as everyone else in the political arena. In other words, the standard for political discourse should be the same for these students as it should be for Marco Rubio when it comes to debating gun laws. Otherwise it’s not a fair debate. The marketplace of ideas, which I believe in fervently as a first amendment absolutist, shouldn’t treat someone differently because of their background. If you want to be treated seriously then everyone should be equal in political debate and your arguments need to best your political opponents.
If you want to be taken seriously in the political realm — and it seems to me the Parkland students want both — then you can’t complain when you get ripped in the political realm the same as other politicians are.
Final point, think about how the media has helped create this distinction in treatment. Sure, some of it is about being in high school, but why are these kids labeled survivors? I get if you want to refer to them as students at the high school where the shooting occurred, that’s entirely accurate, but there are 3,000 students at this high school. Thirteen students died in the school shooting. Which is awful, but this means 99.995667% of the student body survived the shooting.
Now as I’ve made it clear before, I hate school shootings and death more than anyone on the planet. I wish no one ever got shot. I also wish your grandma never died too and you weren’t fat. But am I survivor if I’m on a cruise with 1,000 people and four people get shot and die on that ship? Could I call myself a “cruise ship survivor” for the rest of my life and argue that made me an expert on cruise ship security? Furthermore, should no one ever be able to aggressively challenge my opinions again? Wouldn’t that seem a bit ridiculous?
Yet that’s exactly what happened here.
To me using the term survivor connotes a high degree of mortality. As in, you were lucky to survive and most didn’t. Would you call yourself a school bus survivor if you were riding on a school bus with thirty people and one person died in a traffic accident in that school bus? Probably not. Yet the mortality rate there would be orders of magnitude higher than the school shooting mortality rate was.
Labels matter in media. I’m sure the “school shooter survivor” label was foisted upon these kids when they first started doing interviews as a way to identify otherwise anonymous high school kids, but the very labeling gives them a higher level of moral authority once the immediacy of their story passes. Once you are a survivor of anything it conveys identity and authority which legitimizes your perspective. And that survivor labeling has maintained itself now as they’ve continued their involvement in the political arena.
Shouldn’t these students just be Parkland high school students now?
As a first amendment absolutist I welcome their involvement in the political arena, and may even agree with some of the points they’re making, but I think the standard for combating their political opinions should be the same as the standard for combating any other political opinion you disagree with — they shouldn’t be treated differently.
…
Okay, I’m off to spend the weekend with my family.
Thanks for reading Outkick and have good Easter weekends.

Written by Clay Travis

Clay Travis is the founder of the fastest growing national multimedia platform, OutKick, that produces and distributes engaging content across sports and pop culture to millions of fans across the country. OutKick was created by Travis in 2011 and sold to the Fox Corporation in 2021.

One of the most electrifying and outspoken personalities in the industry, Travis hosts OutKick The Show where he provides his unfiltered opinion on the most compelling headlines throughout sports, culture, and politics. He also makes regular appearances on FOX News Media as a contributor providing analysis on a variety of subjects ranging from sports news to the cultural landscape.

Additionally, Travis serves as a co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, a three-hour conservative radio talk program syndicated across Premiere Networks radio stations nationwide.

Previously, he launched OutKick The Coverage on Fox Sports Radio that included interviews and listener interactions, and started an iHeartRadio Original Podcast called Wins & Losses that featured in-depth conversations with the biggest names in sports.

Travis is a graduate of George Washington University as well as Vanderbilt Law School. Based in Nashville, he is the author of Dixieland Delight, On Rocky Top, and Republicans Buy Sneakers.