I Hurt Kayla’s Feelings

Last month, I posted an entry about former Buccaneer cheerleader Kayla Drawdy. If you don't remember her, here's a picture.

Kayla left a comment basically implying that I had my facts wrong. I responded that she could send me the truth and I would publish it. To my surprise, she followed up. Here is what she wrote:

it wasn't a dui. it is a reckless driving. i would expect you to atleast get your facts right if you decided to put them up.

If this is the case, I suggest contacting the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and getting your arrest record modified. It clearly says you were arrested for "DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE OVER .20". Maybe you were eventually convicted of a different charge, I don't know. But my original statement that you were charged with a DUI appears to be accurate.

and if you wanted to say that a person doesn't cheer for for being arrested then i suggest you do a little researech on that one because you are again mistaken.

Well, of course I never checked with you personally to see exactly why you don't cheer anymore. I assume that the Buccaneers frown on their employees being arrested and that there is a lot of competition for limited spots on the squad, meaning that an arrest might knock you out of contention. My site is not a real news site by any stretch. I sometimes make wild assumptions based on nothing more than my mood and then make jokes about it because it amuses me. I try to make that obvious by the tone of the posts, but sometimes I fail.

you weren't just poking fun , you were being hateful, that's all. and it did hurt my feelings.

Hateful implies hate, and I definitely don't hate you. Hey, I was rooting for you on that NFL Network show last year. But you are making an assumption about how I feel just like I was making assumptions about you, so it's only fair. But for the record, I never meant to hurt your feelings.

I busted my butt for 5 years on this squad and this is the one time i see something you wrote about me.

I guess that's true. This site pretty much concentrates on the players, though. Usually when I mention cheerleaders, it is to pull off some objectification joke. I would guess you don't lament not being a topic of conversation in our all-man dick-and-fart joke party we have going here from time to time. If you have done something extraordinary in the community, then I must have overlooked it in the papers. I will try to be more thorough in the future. For what it's worth, I didn't treat you any differently in this case than I did Torrie Cox, Dwight Smith, David Boston, Michael Pittman, or any other Buccaneer that has gotten in trouble.

People like you are why i don't cheer anymore.

Oh, come on. Now you're just being silly. People like me? My little blog entry didn't appear until five months after the squad had been chosen, so please don't try to lay that on me personally. And as you said, I had never mentioned you before. Were you getting taunted at games while you were cheering? Were people unkind to you because you were a cheerleader? Were you getting tired of putting in hundreds of hours of work for negligible pay? I don't doubt you busted your butt and I know you're good, so if someone else's opinion of you is keeping you from cheering, I implore you to ignore those opinions and get back to it.

Let me get this out of the way, Kayla. I apologize for hurting your feelings. I had little reason to think you would take the ridiculous ramblings of a sports blogger personally. It was certainly not personal. I may have an ego, but there's no way I think so much of myself that I would assume my opinions mattered to anyone that I wrote a post about. The internet is full of opinions and jokes and comments. If you dip your toe in the pool of publicity in any way, some of them are bound to be about you.

Since you're not part of the squad anymore, this blog has little reason to keep up with what's going on in your life. Unless you go on a wild killing spree or something. Then I might have to write something about it. But I'll try to get a hold of you to get your side of the story before I write anything. Deal?