Super Bowl Media Day is an opportunity for reporters to ask questions about more than just football. In many cases, the questions are hardly related to football at all. The players typically do their best to answer them, which is what Richard Sherman tried to do when a female reporter asked him a ridiculous question about strippers on Tuesday.
Here is the question Sherman was asked, as transcribed by Deadspin:
“All of you football guys going into the strip clubs, and throwing … raining down on these strippers. I think that’s a bad example for our young ladies. How can we stop that?” the reporter asked. “I think it’s a bad example that we’re setting for our young girls that they need to be strippers.”
How do you answer a question like that? Sherman actually did a pretty decent job.
“I’ve never gone to a strip club and thrown money, so I couldn’t tell you,” he replied. “I guess, uh, trying to understand that there are other avenues and other ways you can make money, that women can do anything they want in this world. You can go out there and be a CEO of a company, you can go out there and like I said, same can be said for kids in the inner city, that the ceiling is limitless and don’t limit yourself to those possibilities and those circumstances.”
Talk about an unfair question. First of all, the woman started off by saying “all of you football guys.” Plenty of players are happily married with families and probably never set foot in strip clubs. Others simply choose not to go.
Secondly, her question seems intended for celebrities and people with a lot of money — not just NFL players. Do some NFL players spend a lot of money at strip clubs? Of course, and Pacman Jones has admitted as much on several occasions. But so do boxers like Floyd Mayweather and celebrities like Justin Bieber. That question couldn’t have been more inappropriate.
