Usman Farooqi
Professor Curseen
English 2150
April 18, 2015
Tom Pelissero, a writer for USA Today, wrote an article called “Adrian Peterson: ‘I won’t ever use a switch again’.” Pelissero talks about the incident with Adrian Peterson, a football player for The Minnesota Vikings. During the incident, Peterson beat his 4-year-old son with a branch from a tree which injured his son’s leg. Peterson said he was trying to discipline his son with a “switch” from a tree and that this was the way he was disciplined as a child. The NFL suspended Adrian Peterson for at least the rest of the 2014 season. The article gives lots of statements from Peterson in which he tries to help his case by repeatedly apologizing to his son and saying that he loves his son. Also, Peterson says that he wishes he can take back what he did to his son.
The article begins with Adrian Peterson describing a phone call between him and his son five months after the incident. During the phone call, Peterson’s son told his father that he loved him and wanted to come over to his house. Despite the incident, Adrian Peterson still had a good relationship with his son but he still wasn’t able to see his son for while later, in which he hopes that there will be a new beginning for him as a parent. Peterson made comments trying to help his case like, “I won’t ever use a switch again,” and “There’s different situations where a child needs to be disciplined as far as timeout, taking their toys away, making them take a nap. There’s so many different ways to discipline your kids.” Peterson says that he would love to go back and play for Minnesota but his main focus was to repair his relationship with his son.
Adrian Peterson said that he realized what he had done to his son right after the incident and that, “No one knows that Dad sat there and apologized to him, hugged him and told him that I didn’t mean to do this to you and how sorry I was.” Peterson took full responsibility of what he did but he regretted what he did and states that, “I love my son more than any one of you could even imagine.” The article then goes into how Peterson was determined to return to the NFL. He can’t play anywhere until he’s reinstated by the commissioner of the NFL Roger Goodell, who has authority to hear appeals of discipline related to the personal conduct policy. The article also mentions that Peterson was thinking about playing somewhere else so he can get a fresh start.
The next portion of the article goes into how Adrian Peterson defends himself against many false allegations. He first targets the person who leaked photos of his son’s injuries and said that, “For someone who wears the badge to disregard their badge and commit a crime says a lot. (But) no one cares how the pictures were released. All they care about is, ‘Hey, these are the pictures. They say that he put leaves in his mouth. They say that he beat him. They say that I hit his hands (and those were) defensive wounds.’ ” Peterson says that these allegations are false and what really happened was that “He had his son take off his pants and whipped him with a switch, which he didn’t realize was wrapping around the boy’s thigh and leaving marks.”
The article ends off by saying how Adrian Peterson plans to move on from this incident. Peterson first says, “You can look down on me and say, ‘You have six kids. You should not be at this, you should not be at that,’ ” but rebuttals by saying, “This is the cards I’ve been dealt based off my decisions. I make the best of it by spending time with my kids, any and every opportunity that I have.” Peterson says his end goal once everything is over is, “to get back to my normal life, being able to be around my son and being around my kids without having no barrier holding me back.” The article ends off with Peterson saying, “It made me realize that hey, the world can paint you to be this type of person, but ultimately, the child that they are making all these assumptions about – how you treated him and what you’ve done to him – he loves you unconditionally. He wants to be around you. So, let the world paint you out to be whatever they want.”
This article gives many different statements given by Adrian Peterson in which he is trying to defend himself but also acknowledges what he did was wrong and that he wants to better himself and move forward from the incident. Peterson still has a good relationship with his son and he promises that a situation like that will not happen again. He also want to play for the NFL again and try to get his normal life back again.
Pelissero, Tom. “Adrian Peterson: ‘I Won’t Ever Use a Switch Again'” USA Today. N.p., 21 Nov. 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2015.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/vikings/2014/11/20/adrian-peterson-roger-goodell-child-abuse-switch-minnesota-vikings/70025476/
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