What's up fellow Packarino's? It's been a usual quite June, so I thought i'd share a story with you guys.

I had a meeting at 1pm today with a Kansas contingent who flew to our London office, and one of the women I met was called Janet Delaney-Paul. Now, I always wear one Packer-themed piece of clothing or an accesory every day, and today was no different, I had a simple Packer tie on.

So, the meeting finishes and we are all chit chattering in the board room, and Janet mentions my tie, and so begins a football conversation. She is a die hard Chief, about 20 years my senior (I am 24). We proceed to talk news around the league and up pops hold-out situations, and what she then proceeded to tell me still has me reflecting right now.

She is the first cousin of late Kansas City Chiefs running back Joe Delaney. I am sure some of the older folk who visit these forums will remember the name, for those that don't - well he was a pro-bowl back whose life was tragically cut short by trying to save three childrens lives' who were drowning.

Wiki link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Delaney 

Usually, I tend not to emit an emotive response to players' philanthropy - the reason being that whilst an act of monitory genorosity is good, I am not going to feel upon that which I do not know, i.e. motive. I feel it isn't my judge to say "He is good/he is a douche".

Joe Delaney changed that for me today.

Janet recalls Joe Delaney's simple dream, and how disillusioned he was with the global distribution of wealth. His plan was to play until he couldn't anymore, save money, live like a hermit and use all of his accumulated wealth to build a Malaria prevention and treatment center in Zambia. He planned to pay himself a workman's salary per annum, enough to live, but not live extravagantly.

Some may some he was too idealistic, or even stupid for having a plan that pushes familial "Obligation" into the background, but hearing a
first-cousins account (a credible source if any) of the calibre of man an NFL player was, I think he is a model template for character, perhaps not in the literal, but certainly in the abstract - i.e. care, give a damn.

Delaney's family and Chiefs fans should be proud of having such a man associated with them.

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Before even going to the link, let me add my 2c. If I remember correctly, Delaney was one of the league's better RBs at the time of his death.

He saw 3 kids drowning in a swim hole and immediately jumped in, not even knowing how to swim. He was able to save one of them but died along with one other kid. I think the 3rd kid was able to save himself.

People can talk all they want about ideals but actions are what makes a person good or bad. For him to risk his life in a spur of a moment like that showed that Joe Delaney was a good man, and yes, I do believe he's the kind of guy that had he lived, he would have done something great like that.

So I've always admired Delaney. He was a good man.

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Great points raised in this thread, but the question is where do you draw the line? People may like to fondle the thought that sexual deviants or mass murders are irretrievably evil, but that idea doesn't hold water. There are plenty of examples throughout history of seemingly evil men showing unbelievable compassion at odd moments. The annals of history are replete with minions of destruction -- Nazi prison guards, Soviet gulag commanders -- who were tender family men at night. Hell, most serial killers are known as exceptional husbands and fathers.

I am willing to bet virtually any amount of money that almost without exception, any murderer or sexual predator in this country would do the same thing Joe Delaney did in that situation. Does that make them good people, or does it simply show that humans have an odd ability to compartmentalize their lives? Author Hanna Arendt coined the phrase "banality of evil" to describe her belief that the mechanics of history's great evils (specifically, in the case of her thesis, the Holocaust) are not fanatics or sociopaths but rather ordinary people who accept the premises of their state and therefore participate with the view that their actions are normal. In other words, any of us could find ourselves doing what they did . . . almost without realizing it.

Consider this exchange from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl:



The intriguing question is where do you stand?

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Captain Jack Sparrow in his heart was a good man.

I'm willing to bet probably half of the people out there would have run and tried to get help or left the scene without doing anything. This is especially true of city people who are too busy to help out anyone.

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Really?? Not a chance that half the people out there would witness 3 kids drowning and simply walk away. That just seems insane to even think that's a possibility.

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I think Zombieslayer is alluding to the so-called Bystander Effect, and he has a point.

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I read about this guy before. The way he handled himself there was absolutely amazing.

The big thing in his story is that he can't swim. I can imagine that people would do this, but if you can't swim, you're doing this while knowing in the back of your head that you might very well die there.

He showed some amazing courage there.

Ditto friend, it's almost a march to a knowing death.

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