New Mexico senior Hugh Greenwood had one of his best games of the season on Wednesday. His game-high 22 points led the Lobos to a 71-69 win over UNLV. Greenwood’s motivation came from an idiotic source.
After the game, the Australian-born guard explained to a reporter that he had been dealing with someone on Twitter who was making jokes about his mother. More specifically, the Twitter troll was mocking Greenwood because his mother has Stage 2 breast cancer.
“Actually, it was a man on Twitter. I’m not going to shout him out; he doesn’t deserve to,” Greenwood said when asked about his huge game, per Eye on College Basketball. “Talking about my mom battling secondary breast cancer, he was making cancer jokes all afternoon, talking about bringing my mom to the game in a hearse. There’s a line, and it gets crossed, and I was mad about it tonight. Got my first dunk since my freshman year, and I credit it to him tonight because that’s what motivated me.”
We’re glad Greenwood was able to harness his anger on the court, but he never should have had to. That is the absolute lowest of lows. If you thought tweeting death threats at athletes was idiotic, this goes beyond that.
Fortunately, Greenwood has received support since he made his comments. The UNLV student section wrote him a personal letter and several people have been tweeting well-wishes for Greenwood’s mother. Hopefully the thoughtless acts of an idiot will also lead to more people donating to Greenwood’s family fundraiser.
If you can’t remove the idiots from the world, you might as well try to use them to your advantage.
