Rentzel now can't really show his face. He can't do memorabilia shows. Not even after 30 years. If the athlete exposing himself is not particularly well known (Ed Bouchee) there aren't blazing headlines and the man can resume his career and later go to autograph-signing shows if he feels like it, reliving the good times. If it's a non-consensual gang bang involving another player's woman, but can't be fully documented with videotaped evidence (Dwight Gooden, Vince Coleman and Daryl Boston taking their turns at bat) then people likewise forget. If the incident is wife-swapping and the guy ends up divorced and looking like a total asshole AND he's not much of an athlete anyway, he can change his name and disappear (oh, Mike Kekich where art thou…nevermind….)
But Rentzel? The unusual name, his huge fame (a star athlete married to Joey Heatherton) and being officially caught TWICE exposing himself to young girls? Hey, that's the third strike, even if you're a football player.
Rentzel got away with it once in 1967 when he was with the Minnesota Vikings, and the charge was quietly reduced to "disorderly conduct." But three years later, while a member of the Dallas Cowboys and Joey-married, his victim's family refused all bribes and chose to shame his fame. And they did, nevermind his excuses, his depression, his confusion. Rentzel's marriage ended, and while he did manage to keep playing (for the Rams) the scandal sent him to exile and obscurity soon after. His whereabouts and his life over the past decades are not well known.
Footnote #1: scandal-plagued bike rider Lance Armstrong was named after Lance Rentzel.
Footnote #2: Rentzel blamed the first incident on depression after reading the book "1984." The second incident after watching the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey."
Footnote #3: Lance's book is mostly a straight autobiography, not entirely about two incidents or the psycho-sexual phenomenon of guys who either have a turn-on or suddenly are driven to "prove their masculinity" by flashing (especially flashing at young girls or old ladies who'd be most likely to show a reaction). An irony is that Lance talks about the sadistic coaches that worked players till they dropped (not illegal) and the hazing rituals he and other college athletes went through. Like being forced to crawl around backward with "grapes up our asses" while drinking body fluids and getting smacked with battery-powered cattle prods. Ohhh, that's normal college activity! All the laughter hasn't died as far as college fraternity and sorority antics go...it still goes on, and nobody's as concerned with that shit as they are with protecting children from...the sight of a dick? Which they get to see on line thanks to our wonderful Internet sometimes by accident but many times on purpose by people a lot more evil than Lance Rentzel?
And here's a musical footnote. When he was a big star, Lance was even asked to make a record.
LOOKIN' LIKE SOMETHIN' THAT AIN'T?...too easy to make that into a dick joke. Let's just say that this star athlete, who wrote a book trying to explain himself, was not a bad singer. He does a nice job on this mild soul B-side. It's short and painless. No, that's not a dick joke either.
Lance Rentzel LOOKIN' LIKE SOMETHIN' THAT AIN'T
He was a damngood football player the Qb for greenbay raped several women he had to show his dick to do that but yet he still played!
ReplyDeleteGood to see the compassionate quotes. It's so easy to judge but harder, in this society, to possess perspective and forgive. I read When All the Laughter Died when I was about 12. I remember thinking of Lance as a person who wasn't making excuses for himself as he tried to make things right. I hope he has done well.
ReplyDeleteIf a strange man drove up to your 3rd grade daughter or sister and whipped out his disgusting genitals, would you still find it hard to feel sorry for Lance? Because he's a good football player? It's not hard to feel sorry for a grown man with a dream career, married to a phenomenally gorgeous movie star because he can't keep his penis in his pants, explicitly IN FRONT OF LITTLE GIRLS. What a scum bag.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
DeleteIndeed
DeleteFeeling sorry for a guy because he's a good football player? Because he was married to Joey Heatherton and STILL had this sick compulsion? Feeling sorry for someone doesn't mean that they should be excused - either from being reported in newspapers to getting whatever sentence a court of law feels is just. First baseman Ed Bouchee (probably a year or two before Lance, I'm not sure) was reported for a few incidents like this, and took time off to get treatment, and apparently it worked (which is a miracle in itself). He was traded, but did have a fairly decent career for a few more years before retirement.
ReplyDeleteAs to feeling sorry for Lance, or course one feels sorrier for the girls involved, who hopefully got the counseling needed.
I can refer you to Fritz Lang's movie "M," which marked the impressive star-debut of Peter Lorre. He played someone worse than Lance. He played a child-murderer, which was probably based on a true life case in Dusseldorf. In the film, the police call on "the underworld" to use their skills in finding this despicable loner, which they did. I'll stick a "spoiler alert" for the next sentence...Lorre is caught by the mob, and gives an impassioned speech about his wretched compulsion. Some want to just kill the bastard just as he killed a little girl. But....
....and we have this debate about capital punishment and always will. What is the just punishment? What percentage of offenders, sexual or otherwise, can be rehabilitated?
God knows, there are plenty doing this or worse in real life, and using social media to entice young teens. Or flying to the Far East to get their insane needs met. There are also demented idiots on the Internet downloading child porn, and there's a faint debate on whether this prevents them from acting on their twisted needs or encourages them. Either way, the kids in the photos were being exploited, whether it's an adult with a kid, or two kids being coached, or just a kid told to pose-- whatever, it's a vicious crime. The empathy goes far more to the victim than the perp.
Wait…I can’t tell how tongue-in-cheek this is meant to be. We’re not actually meant to feel sorry for a grown-ass man who exposed himself to three different children on two separate occasions? That was the dark humor of the piece, right? We’re all clear that there was a victim here and it wasn’t the adult superstar football player?
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