Rashard Mendenhall made plenty of headlines throughout the day on Tuesday after establishing his strong opinion on the Osama bin Laden killing, but it wasn't until Wednesday afternoon that we heard one of his teammates respond to the controversy.
Steelers safety Ryan Clark spoke out about Mendenhall's tweets — where the Pittsburgh running back questioned the response of those who were celebrating the terrorist's death — on Wednesday on SiriusXM's Mad Dog Radio, and the nine-year NFL veteran had some strong feelings regarding social media, msnbc.com reports.
"Social media is ruining the world," Clark said of his initial reaction to Mendenhall's tweets. "Facebook and Twitter are probably going to be responsible for more divorces than infidelity coming up here soon."
Twitter and Facebook have been at the center of several athlete controversies in the recent past, and Clark says he is consistently warning his family about the dangers of social media.
"As I stress to my son at least once a week, anything he says on Twitter or Facebook can come back to haunt him," Clark said. "Though, in the grand scheme of things, Mendenhall isn't much older than my son, Mendenhall is an adult — and adults should be expected to realize the practical consequences of making statements in places where they can be read by anyone and everyone."
Though his stance against social media is clear, Clark refused to judge his teammate for expressing his opinions to the general public.
"I guess he's entitled to his opinion," Clark said. "He didn't claim that those opinions were shared by anyone else but himself. That was what he chose to put out there. I knew he was going to catch a lot of flak for it, I knew there was going to be a lot of backlash toward those comments, but he's entitled to put whatever he wants to put on his Twitter page.
"The thing you have to know these days, though, if you do put those type of things out there, people are going to comment on them," he added. "It's going to make news. It's going to be a big deal when you do something that controversial. As long as he can stand by his statements then he's free to do whatever he wants."
Mendenhall posted a blog entry on Wednesday to clarify the statements he made on his Twitter page, saying he "wasn't questioning" the evil in Osama bin Laden, but rather "reflecting on our own hypocrisy."
