ESPN Has A Profile On The Titans GM And How He Uses Jay-Z Lyrics To Be Both 'Hip' And Relatable For Black Players
ESPN – When [40-year-old Titans general manager] Jon Robinson passes a guy in the hallway after a bad day, the player is more likely to hear the Tennessee Titans general manager quote Jay Z than Knute Rockne.
“I’m an eclectic music guy, I listen to rap, I listen to country, I listen to rock, I listen to everything,” he said. “I try to stay hip on all of the stuff. So that when I walk by somebody and they had a bad practice, I might say, ‘Hey, it’s like Jay Z, we’re ‘On to the Next One.’ And that resonates with him. He looks at me like, ‘All right, this guy’s kind of hip.’ I think that’s important.
“I think Jay Z’s got it down.”
Titans fans think Robinson’s got it down.
If I had a dollar for every time a young black athlete has said, “All right, this guy’s kind of hip” every time a white guy has forced a Jay-Z quote into conversation, I’m sure I’d have literally one and one of dollars. But I think as a white person that grew up in a “ghetto” area in the Bronx, I’m more sensitive to stuff like a 40-year-old white guy trying to be cool and with it because it’s one of my worst fears in the world. When you pass 30 years old and friends start getting married or having kids, you can quickly start to feel them get less socially aware and “hip.” They’ve never really seen Tinder, they don’t know that you have to use Snapchat to have any hope of hooking up with someone under 25, and they definitely don’t understand where hip hop is in 2016. It’s sort of endearing until you realize “These people are my peers” and you’re one emotionally fulfilling and functional relationship — barf — from being just like them.
At the same time, that’s sort of the natural order of things. You get older, culture around you starts to make less sense, so you buy a bunch of polos, khakis, and some diversified mutual bonds to lean in on being an Adult White Man. But then you see an article like this and the Titans GM Jon Robinson really thinks a rookie out of Mississippi State who blasts trap music and eats chicks’ oversized asses through gold fronts in the middle of a house party with his boys is somehow hearing Robinson proudly quote Jay Z and going “Yes, this white man who employs me is speaking my language.” The lack of self-awareness is what gets me every time. Afrika Bambaataa Robinson here seeing a player walk in with a new outfit going “Check out Big Pimpin here, spending cheese” and feeling like they shared a real bonding moment kills me. Don’t be that guy. I’d rather be the “You know, Shakespeare is the original rapper with the sick flow” over that. At least there’s a quiet dignity there.
But hey it’s not all negatives, I thought this part of the piece about Jon Robinson was very nice and warmed my heart:
Growing up in Union City, he called himself a “homeboy” with a close group of friends. Football was important to him, and he saw “guys as guys.”
“White, black, pink, orange, it doesn’t matter to me,” Robinson said. “If you’re passionate about football and you work hard, that really didn’t matter to me.”
I’m glad he threw “orange” in there. Hulk Hogan’s been having a rough go of it since he dropped those n-bombs on his sex tape and he needs all the emotional support he can get. Very kind of Jon Robinson to include him in his ethnic rainbow of homeboy inclusion.