BOSTON (CBS) — For a kicker, getting drafted in any respect is a dream come true. For a kicker from a smaller faculty who’s hardly ranked in any pre-draft analyses, getting drafted is a borderline miracle.
But for brand spanking new Patriots kicker Justin Rohrwasser, the expertise of getting drafted rapidly was a little bit of a nightmare when photographs of a tattoo on his left arm rapidly unfold on social media and created an prompt controversy.
That tattoo was the emblem for The Three Percenters, a gaggle thought of by the Anti-Defamation League to be an “extremist motion” that promotes “the concept that the federal authorities is plotting to remove the rights of Americans and should be resisted.”
Rohrwasser instantly confronted questions concerning the tattoo when speaking with New England reporters shortly after being drafted, and the subsequent day, he reportedly was overwhelmed with emotion.
“He simply broke down crying within the automobile,” Rohrwasser’s highschool soccer coach John Barber told The Boston Globe’s Ben Volin. “My first response was, ‘The place are you? I’ll come get you.’ He stated, ‘No, I’m superb, I’m driving house.’”
Rohrwasser was actually nonetheless emotional the next day, when he told WBZ-TV’s Steve Burton that he’ll be eradicating the tattoo and that he feels badly for individuals who have needed to defend his character.
Volin’s story famous that Rohrwasser is an outspoken conservative who wore a Make America Nice hat across the URI campus throughout the 2016 election cycle. But Volin spoke to quite a few former coaches and teammates who vigorously defended Rohrwasser and stated the kicker will not be an extremist and isn’t illiberal of different folks’s beliefs.
“For him to be known as a racist thug and a Nazi and Hitler, it simply turns my abdomen, as a result of that’s not who he’s,” Barber instructed Volin. “What ought to’ve been the very best day of his life … those who — I’m making an attempt to be well mannered — they don’t perceive the complete story of who he’s, simply wish to take one thing out of context and destroy a child, which wasn’t known as for. … His senior yr, he dated my niece for 5 to 6 months. He’s child. Once we talked on Sunday, he broke proper down crying. So it was troublesome.”
