Josh Gordon is known for many things: for being a star wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns; for leading the NFL in receiving yards last season; for being suspended from his college football team, the Baylor Bears, for falling asleep in a Taco Bell parking lot with marijuana in his car; for receiving a one year suspension from the NFL for failing a marijuana test; for going to high school with your On Fire Correspondent; and for his plan to work as a car salesman during his yearlong suspension.
“Holy cow!” Your Correspondent can literally feel the shock emanating out from the very core of all our loyal readers. Yes, most of those facts are pretty mundane and straightforward, but one of them leaps off of the page.
It is true, your On Fire correspondent went to high school with Josh Gordon.
We were both Redskins at Lamar High School in Houston Texas. Lamar possesses a long list of important, impactful and interesting alumni – at least if you believe Wikipedia.
The list begins A.J. Foyt Jr., one of the greatest racecar (which is a palindrome, if anyone is curious) drivers of all time. But it does not stop there. No Lamar Redskin could ever forget the name of Ron Henley, the international chess grandmaster, or that of Robert Woodrow Wilson, the 1978 Noble laureate in physics. And of course there is Mike Godwin, the general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation (full disclosure – your On Fire correspondent found this list of notable alumni on Wikipedia; fuller disclosure – your On Fire correspondent only got through high school with the help of Wikipedia).
And, if any of our readers are interested in contemporary sports, Anthony Rendon, the Washington Nationals’ star third baseman, and Brian Orakpo, the stud lineman for the Washington Redskins, also graduated from Lamar.
The point is, our readers should not get too excited about the fact that their correspondent and Josh Gordon went to the same high school – we are just at the top of a long list of important Redskins.
Josh and your correspondent had very similar high school experiences. He was the star of the football team. Your correspondent was the first alternate of the tennis team. Your correspondent graduated fourth in the class of 2011, and was voted most likely to succeed by his (or her) peers. Josh Gordon presumably got laid all the time before graduating in 2009.
In an interesting side note, our alma mater, Lamar, is no longer the Redskins. We are now the Lamar Texans
This is a complicated and delicate issue, which your sensitive On Fire correspondent will try to deal with in less than seventy-five words.
Redskin is a potentially derogatory term for American Indians. No team being named in the 21st century would ever be called the Redskins. But, at Lamar, the name did not represent any negative feelings towards American Indians – it represented pride in the school that A.J. Foyt, Ron Henley, Robert Woodrow Wilson, Brian Orakpo, Anthony Rendon, Josh Gordon, and your On Fire correspondent all attended.
We digress. The point is, since your correspondent and Josh Gordon overlapped for two years at a massive public high school in a massive urban center in the second largest state in the Union, your correspondent has a special insight into the mind, thoughts, values and actions of Mr. Gordon.
So Josh (as your correspondent referred to Mr. Gordon when we were close personal friends in high school) got suspended for toking the reefer, as the kids say these days, and he is going to be spending his free time over the next year selling cars.
And our readers want to know what the heck is going on.
As far as the whole drug thing goes, your correspondent cannot explain that urge – Chipotle is the only drug he (or she) needs.
But, what is the deal with the whole car salesman thingww?
All of us at On Fire are very supportive of this career move for Josh, for several reasons.
We love the idea of him negotiating with a suburban dad over the price of a Honda Pilot. Will the dad be able to talk him into throwing in the DVD player for free? Only time will tell.
It is a tough and scary world out there, and we are eager to see how Josh Gordon deals with it.
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
