Jackson Free Press

Football is coming.

Finally, after what seems like the longest off-season in years, football is about to shift its focus back to what happens on the field instead of everything else in the world.

The season will overshadow a former football player who just won't go away—former Minnesota Vikings and Oakland Raiders offseason punter Kris Kluwe.

Kluwe accused the Vikings of cutting him for his vocal stance on gay rights. He also said that special teams coach Mike Priefer made homophobic remarks (the team has suspended Priefer for the first three games of the season after an internal investigation).

He might be for gay rights, but his look-at-me attitude and attention-seeking ways leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Kluwe spoke out for gay rights but also thought it was funny to tear a hole in his underwear and say he was a victim of former Pennsylvania State University coach Jerry Sandusky. He directed his nearly homophobic joke at Vikings strength coach Tom Kanavy, a Penn State alumnus and former member of its coaching staff. Kluwe's defense was that half the locker room made the same jokes.

He thought it was funny to make jokes and have a laugh about kids being sexually abused but didn't like it when his coach made remarks about gays. Kluwe thought of himself as a crusader for gay rights and someone who was changing the locker room culture in the NFL, but he also fed into that culture with his extremely poor taste in jokes.

Kluwe also thinks it's funny to tweet about two well-known Vikings players caught in a compromising position with an underage girl. Yet, the former NFL punter never felt the need to tell the authorities about it.

While having the moral compass to speak out on gay rights is great, Kluwe didn't have the same inclination to help protect an underage girl or to not think it was wrong to crack jokes about children who were victims of sexual abuse.

Kluwe just seems like he wants attention and is upset that his NFL career is over. Does he really care about changing cultures or acceptance for gay players when he wouldn't even report the assault of an underage girl?

Kluwe needs to tell the police what happened to that girl, and then he needs to go away. He is no hero. Not anymore.