Big Lead Sports Bar

5/22/2007

No Discipline Likely For Porngate

The Steelers finally addressed the profootballtalk.com report concerning a pornographic email sent from 61-year-old offensive line coach Larry Zierlein to high-ranking personnel around the NFL, including Commissioner Roger Goodell. The email was sent to Zierlein by Steelers Pro Personnel Coordinator Doug Whaley.
From Ed Bouchette's article in the PG:
The Steelers' statement, issued by spokesman Dave Lockett, did not identify the club employee in question but did acknowledge that "The sending of inappropriate e - mail messages is against club and league policy, and the sender has been warned about the policy violation. The sender has issued an apology to all of the recipients."

The reaction from PFT:

Though we don't believe that either man should be disciplined severely for the violation of the rules, some league insiders are surprised by the outcome. Said one executive from another team: "When the e-mail came to us we figured they would be fired by the end of the day."

Said another source: "I saw the e-mail. It was brutal. . . . I feel bad for Whaley, a little. He's a good dude, works hard, handles himself very professionally. He's going to have that follow him around for a long time. Zierlein's irrelevant. He's older. This would be his last job probably anyways."

Well, it looks like Whaley and Zierlein both dodged a major bullet in this one. There are plenty of corporations that would have immediately given these two their walking papers. Apparently the Steelers aren't one of those corporations. While these guys did not get the axe, it appears they got quite the stern warning from their bosses. And as PFT points out, I'm sure they'll use Yahoo or MSN the next time they get the urge to send anything that may get them in trouble.

Since that ugly incident is now behind us, we can finally get back to real Steeler talk...like Alan Faneca's no-show at Steeler practice.

Steelers warn staffers who sent off-color e-mail [Post-Gazette]

Steelers say inappropriate e-mail accidentally sent [Tribune-Review]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is pathetic. Anyone who use a company email account for such filth is asking to be reprimanded.

And if you can't tell the difference between your intended recipients and "ALL GM'S; NFL-280 PARK," then I can't imagine how you turn on your computer with changing your dollar for four tokens.

gatorB8 said...

I can say, 100%, without a doubt, I would have been fired by now. Its clearly a violation of the rules, accident or not. Whether you are a great employee/person should not factor into the situation.

This has got to raise questions within the steelers organization. If some lower level employee in the organization did this, do you think they would still keep them around? I don't know, just throwing that out there. I'm still shocked that the local media is actually carrying this story.

Unknown said...

anychance we can get a copy of that email ;). I want to see what kinda porn they were sending to see how bad it really was. if it was some hardcore shit, they definetly should have been gone. if it was some softcore model or something, man i'm sure goodell wasn't complaining hehe.