ESPN Announcers actually get it

[JasonB]

I don't think ponyboy is defending June at all.

It's kind of like when an employee leaves your company. Sure, it could be the best for the company. And sometimes you are happy they left because they were disruptive at the end. But the best companies try to look internally and see if there is something that pushed him out and caused him to be come disruptive, so that it won't ever happen again.

At some point you hired that employee because you really liked them. And then something changed along the way. Just look around and make sure it was really the employee who acted different than you expected and that it wasn't the company who had a negative impact on the person.

And, no that is not a defense of June in any way. At all. Just saying take a look in the mirror and make sure nothing is wrong for the next guy.

[footballdad]

So his checking out and losing interest in SMU is entirely his fault and has nothing to do with us then? We can just discount Cole Beasley, Taylor Reed, Eric Dickerson, the list goes on and on. They've all just been brainwashed by this genius of a lazy, sleazy, evil human being?

ponyboy & JasonB....

June Jones' checking out, and legendary arrogance was 100% his own fault. I think I've also found the clinical diagnosis for Beasley, Dickerson, Reed and the rest of the zombies who follow him blindly. Tell me if this sounds about right?:

Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness. Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes strong emotional ties that develop between two persons. One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual's response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be perceived as a threat.

[ponyboy]

Well said, JasonB