Table For One: A Day of Infamy, by Grady Jim Robinson
Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2017 8:23 pm
Table For One: A Day of Infamy
by Grady Jim Robinson
February 21, 2007
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
I've received some hate mail in my time. We columnists sometimes ask for it with our smart-aleck opinions. You get used to it. But I've never received hate mail like the e-mail one Teresa Prewett of Little Rock sent to 18-year-old Razorback quarterback Mitch Mustain on Dec. 7, a day that will live in infamy. On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese torpedoed the USS Arizona, putting her at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. On Dec. 7, 2006, Teresa Prewett torpedoed the good ship Arkansas, and Razorbacks began to abandon ship almost immediately. Damian Williams fled to USC, Gus Malzahn decided to seek safer waters in Tulsa, and Mitch Mustain asked for and received his release from the team. Who can blame them? If I had received such a letter as a freshman basketball player at the old Fort Smith Junior College, I would have joined the Army and gone to Vietnam where I felt safe.
After this bombshell was published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last Thursday, the rumor instantly surfaced that the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees would demand Frank Broyles step down after almost 50 years of superior service. (Trustees argue that there was no connection between the published letter and the board's frantic phone calls on the morning of Feb. 15; riiiight.) Broyles announced his retirement Saturday to a vast array of accolades from admirers all over America. You can bet that letter from Teresa Prewett will be laminated and in the briefcase of every recruiter representing Alabama, Ole Miss, Auburn, LSU and Oklahoma for years to come. The leakage may be worse than the Exxon Valdez. But my question is this: What on earth was that woman thinking? That's just about the meanest, nastiest hate mail I have ever seen or heard short of an actual death threat. Why the hell did you come to Arkansas??? I hope you will transfer?? Did I mention I hope you will transfer?? That is mean! As disappointed as many of us were in the passing game, I don't know of ANYONE who would write such a letter to a kid. Maybe she doesn't get it. Allow me to assist with an experiment in what we shall mirror-parody. (I just invented that word.) I am sure I can't do it justice, but allow me take many of her actual sentences and parody them back at Mrs. Prewett, like looking into a mirror at your on meanness. Let's see how it might feel to get a letter of this type late at night while sitting alone in your dorm room.
Hello, Mrs. Interference Queen, Are you having a good morning? I'm sure you are since your nasty letter was published statewide and your name has been in the paper every day. Why the hell did you write such a letter to an Arkansas football player? Who do you think you are writing a letter that has virtually destroyed the Razorback football program? Do you really think that because you got sideline passes from Danny Nutt, because you are his physical therapist and have season tickets and became friends with Diana Nutt, that you are ordained as the No. 1 hate-mail writer to any 18-year-olds on the team? You have to earn that role, (expletive). Competition scares the (expletive) out of you, doesn't it, girlie-girl? This is the SEC for goodness sakes, and reading your sophomoric and asinine e-mail to an 18-year-old makes it very evident that you are not mature enough to be the hate mail spokesperson for fans. Your vile-rant-tomature-fact ratio is a joke. You couldn't write your way out of a remedial writing course filled with freshman linemen from Pine Bluff. This isn't a junior high girlie-girl cat fight, and you need to take off your junior high cheerleading sweater and realize it. This is the real world and you, little girl, aren't good enough for it.
So, I hope you will move out of Arkansas. Yes, you did write a letter that almost destroyed the program, but you just remember one thing: Your vitriolic, misinformed, childish, mean-spirited diatribe was published only because a far superior hate-monger like Rush Limbaugh was sidelined with a brain cramp. Every once in a blue moon you had a point, but usually that was followed by three emotional puke-ups. I'm sure you have the talent to someday write a good, hate-filled e-mail to other 18-year-olds, but we all hope it's not in Arkansas. You can win the Pulitzer Prize for all I care, but please, not in Arkansas. Mrs. Prewett, would you please move from this state... please, pretty please. Do you think Charlie Weis at Notre Dame would be putting up with your (expletive)? God, I wish you had gone to Notre Dame. Did I mention I wish you would move out of Arkansas? Forever.
Well, I've wasted enough time on the likes of you today. Did I mention I want you to move out of Arkansas?
Your pal, Grady
Ouch! I'm sorry! That is mean! But, incredibly, for those of you who may have missed it, the original e-mail sent to Mustain was three times as long and the expletives were spelled out for full effect. I wonder how Mrs. Prewett will feel if she reads this? Do you think it might be similar to the way Mitch Mustain felt? I'm just wondering.
Grady Jim Robinson lives in Fayetteville. His column appears on Wednesdays.
by Grady Jim Robinson
February 21, 2007
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
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I've received some hate mail in my time. We columnists sometimes ask for it with our smart-aleck opinions. You get used to it. But I've never received hate mail like the e-mail one Teresa Prewett of Little Rock sent to 18-year-old Razorback quarterback Mitch Mustain on Dec. 7, a day that will live in infamy. On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese torpedoed the USS Arizona, putting her at the bottom of Pearl Harbor. On Dec. 7, 2006, Teresa Prewett torpedoed the good ship Arkansas, and Razorbacks began to abandon ship almost immediately. Damian Williams fled to USC, Gus Malzahn decided to seek safer waters in Tulsa, and Mitch Mustain asked for and received his release from the team. Who can blame them? If I had received such a letter as a freshman basketball player at the old Fort Smith Junior College, I would have joined the Army and gone to Vietnam where I felt safe.
After this bombshell was published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last Thursday, the rumor instantly surfaced that the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees would demand Frank Broyles step down after almost 50 years of superior service. (Trustees argue that there was no connection between the published letter and the board's frantic phone calls on the morning of Feb. 15; riiiight.) Broyles announced his retirement Saturday to a vast array of accolades from admirers all over America. You can bet that letter from Teresa Prewett will be laminated and in the briefcase of every recruiter representing Alabama, Ole Miss, Auburn, LSU and Oklahoma for years to come. The leakage may be worse than the Exxon Valdez. But my question is this: What on earth was that woman thinking? That's just about the meanest, nastiest hate mail I have ever seen or heard short of an actual death threat. Why the hell did you come to Arkansas??? I hope you will transfer?? Did I mention I hope you will transfer?? That is mean! As disappointed as many of us were in the passing game, I don't know of ANYONE who would write such a letter to a kid. Maybe she doesn't get it. Allow me to assist with an experiment in what we shall mirror-parody. (I just invented that word.) I am sure I can't do it justice, but allow me take many of her actual sentences and parody them back at Mrs. Prewett, like looking into a mirror at your on meanness. Let's see how it might feel to get a letter of this type late at night while sitting alone in your dorm room.
Hello, Mrs. Interference Queen, Are you having a good morning? I'm sure you are since your nasty letter was published statewide and your name has been in the paper every day. Why the hell did you write such a letter to an Arkansas football player? Who do you think you are writing a letter that has virtually destroyed the Razorback football program? Do you really think that because you got sideline passes from Danny Nutt, because you are his physical therapist and have season tickets and became friends with Diana Nutt, that you are ordained as the No. 1 hate-mail writer to any 18-year-olds on the team? You have to earn that role, (expletive). Competition scares the (expletive) out of you, doesn't it, girlie-girl? This is the SEC for goodness sakes, and reading your sophomoric and asinine e-mail to an 18-year-old makes it very evident that you are not mature enough to be the hate mail spokesperson for fans. Your vile-rant-tomature-fact ratio is a joke. You couldn't write your way out of a remedial writing course filled with freshman linemen from Pine Bluff. This isn't a junior high girlie-girl cat fight, and you need to take off your junior high cheerleading sweater and realize it. This is the real world and you, little girl, aren't good enough for it.
So, I hope you will move out of Arkansas. Yes, you did write a letter that almost destroyed the program, but you just remember one thing: Your vitriolic, misinformed, childish, mean-spirited diatribe was published only because a far superior hate-monger like Rush Limbaugh was sidelined with a brain cramp. Every once in a blue moon you had a point, but usually that was followed by three emotional puke-ups. I'm sure you have the talent to someday write a good, hate-filled e-mail to other 18-year-olds, but we all hope it's not in Arkansas. You can win the Pulitzer Prize for all I care, but please, not in Arkansas. Mrs. Prewett, would you please move from this state... please, pretty please. Do you think Charlie Weis at Notre Dame would be putting up with your (expletive)? God, I wish you had gone to Notre Dame. Did I mention I wish you would move out of Arkansas? Forever.
Well, I've wasted enough time on the likes of you today. Did I mention I want you to move out of Arkansas?
Your pal, Grady
Ouch! I'm sorry! That is mean! But, incredibly, for those of you who may have missed it, the original e-mail sent to Mustain was three times as long and the expletives were spelled out for full effect. I wonder how Mrs. Prewett will feel if she reads this? Do you think it might be similar to the way Mitch Mustain felt? I'm just wondering.
Grady Jim Robinson lives in Fayetteville. His column appears on Wednesdays.