How Not to Act

It is understandable in my eyes that tensions run high when a player is released. One wonders whether or not they are good enough or if they were given a fair shot.

But there is a right way to leave town and a wrong way to leave town.

Eric Wilbur went about it the right way. He did not vent his frustrations at not making the team. He simply said thank you to the organization and wished the team the best of luck in 2011.

Jack Julsing, or should I say, Jack Julsing's father, John, went about it the absolute wrong way.

As everyone knows, Drew Edwards is the Tiger-Cats beat reporter for the Hamilton Spectator, and he runs The Scratching Post, a blog dedicated to the Ti-Cats. He uses it to get the news that is happening to fans more quickly than traditional news outlets allow.

Drew quickly posted the story of who the Tiger-Cats cut to trim the roster down. One of the players released was Jack Julsing.

In the comment section, someone posted as 'John Julsing' and claimed to be Jack Julsing's father. The reason I am not saying it was him is that anyone can claim to be anyone else on the Internet.

But if it was in fact John Julsing, he should be absolutely ashamed of himself for what he wrote. If he were my father, I'd be embarrassed beyond belief. Here is what John Julsing had to say, unedited, in the comment section:

Drew- My son Jack Julsing was not “released” by Hamilton as we felt that it was not in his best interests to be on a practice roster financially crippling himself and potentially possibly injuring himself without medical insurances or other team benefits. After efforts to trade him to Edmonton failed we asked that the Ti-Cats let him go. This was our choice. In ending the CFL is out of touch with progressive football as I grew up around the CFL and can make this comment. They do not understand that “youth” means young not (2) 32 year old O-Tackles. No one in the NFL has that kind of age on their teams. The trend is to draft youth at O-Tackle notably this year our home town Moreno Valley California boy Tyron Smith (USC) 20 years old overall draft choice #9, our friend Ryan Clady 2 year starter at Denver (started at 23 years old), Joe Thomas starter at Cincy (23) and Blind Side Michael Oher starter at Baltimore at 24 years old. The kids coming out of High Schools are starting for the college teams at 18 years old also. There is not a singular Canadian High School kid that is stronger or more athletic that the top 500 American college recruits on the O-Line and as time passes the Canadian kids will fall further behind. The CFL was lucky that the NFL was on lock out otherwise all the CFL teams would not have had the talent in their camps this year. The downside the agents will be sharing stories among themselves of the players and how they were treated in the CFL. Sincerely John Julsing.

John Julsing looks like a bigger idiot with each passing word. Not only does he seem to be making facts up out of thin air (no NFL team has 30-plus-year-old players on their team?) and, for the record, Joe Thomas plays for Cleveland, not Cincinnati, Mr. Julsing.

In the future, if your son gets cut from a professional football team, it doesn't look good when daddy goes on the local website and trashes the team and the league. What is the old saying? Better to stay quiet and have people think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt? Mr. Julsing would be wise to take that into consideration the next time he decides to open his big mouth.