James Hardy: get it together

When we open the daily newspaper to read about another 6-foot-5-inch, 212-pound NFL wide receiver with character issues, we barely bat an eye.\nNew England wide receiver Randy Moss runs over meter maids while Dallas wide receiver Terrell Owens overdoses on pills. Cincinatti wide receiver Chad Johnson gets on television and demands a trade, while former teammate Chris Henry fails another drug test. Former Carolina Panther wide reciever Rae Carruth is in jail for at least 18 years after conspiring to murder his girlfriend and unborn child.\nSo it goes.\nWe sigh and think to ourselves, “What else is new?”\nBut Tuesday afternoon, news broke that Hoosier favorite and new Buffalo Bill James Hardy had a confrontation with his father. Hardy was said to be “beating up his father” when a woman yelled at him, pleading for the all-conference player to stop. It was then that Hardy pulled a gun. The police were called, but Hardy left the scene before they arrived. As the dust settled, the younger Hardy was not arrested and the police have no intentions to “pursue the matter any further.”\nJames Hardy will go down in Hoosier history as one of the greatest pass-catchers to ever don the cream and crimson. This is the same James Hardy who in May 2006 was arrested on battery charges (later dropped) for abusing his girlfriend and their son; the same James Hardy who received raucous cheers from the Hoosier nation for every one of his record setting 16 touchdowns in 2007. Did we ever really know who James Hardy was?\nWe bragged to our friends at rival schools about how Hardy could easily have stopped playing football and been a star forward on the basketball team. We loved watching James Hardy play football every Saturday and could sense he might do great things in the NFL.\nBut his character issues keep piling up. With our guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude toward celebrities, Hardy is quickly ruining his reputation as a Hoosier great and is shaping into the mold left by other players, such as Dallas defensive back Adam “Pacman” Jones and former St. Louis running back Lawrence Phillips, whose troubled pasts blinded their bright futures.\nThe Hoosier nation needs Hardy to get his act together. In 10 years, I want to be able to sit down with my kids and watch a Bills game and talk about how I got to watch Hardy take the Hoosiers to their first bowl game in 15 years.\nHardy has every opportunity to succeed in the NFL. But if he continues behaving like this, we’ll forget his receptions and remember his convictions.\nCome on, James. We are rooting for you.