Raiders’ head coach calls it quits as leaked emails create controversy
Longtime Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden, affectionately known as “Chucky,” has resigned from the Raiders, and fans around The Q have mixed emotions about the reasons why.
The Super Bowl champions’ head coach wrote some emails between 2010 and 2018 that were leaked in October. The emails contained language that was racist, homophobic and misogynistic, reported a local news station. The language in the emails is what led to Gruden’s resignation.
He has since apologized publicly for his actions.
“I do not have a racist bone in my body,” Gruden said in an interview on a local TV station.
However, residents around The Q are seeing Gruden in a different light, as opposed to how they once saw him.
The head coach of the SQ All Madden football team, Bryant Underwood, understands how important it is for someone in a leadership position to conduct themselves properly.
“As a coach, he should know how to keep it professional with individuals and with players,” said Underwood. “Being in management, he ought to know that he is always under a microscope and everything you do or say will be scrutinized.”
Someone else who has been scrutinizing this issue, and who has been a Raiders super fan ever since he was a little kid, is Charles “Pookie” Sylvester. After hearing about what took place with his favorite head coach in the league, he was disappointed.
“It was a slap in the face and it was very shocking to me,” said Sylvester. “I know he is human, but to be on a platform like this and having little kids looking up to you, you are supposed to be on a higher standard.”
Just like every other true diehard Raiders fan, Sylvester rationalized in his heart to forgive the head coach for his mistake.
“He may not have even meant it to be harmful,” Sylvester said. “He was probably joking. The emails were from long ago and I think he didn’t mean anything by them.”
Sylvester raises a point that, when thought about, might make a true Raider fan ask these very questions.
“Why were the emails leaked from so long ago?’’ Sylvester asked. “Why wait so late to put them out there?”
Sylvester concluded, “I just hate to see good people go down by doing something stupid. I don’t think that
he should have resigned. Because if every piece of dirt comes out about everybody, the whole world would be canceled out in this cancel culture we live in. Because nowadays, anything we say can be taken out of proportion.”
