Miami Dolphins' Jonathan Martin Speaks on Bullying Situation: 'I Felt Trapped'
Former Miami Dolphins player Jonathan Martin has spoken out for the first time since he initially broke the news about bullying on the football team. He broke his silence in order to hopefully help others who were going through their own bullying scenarios as well as those on his team.
"I'm a grown man," he told NBC Nightly News. "I've been in locker rooms. There's vulgar language used in locker rooms. One instance doesn't bother me. It's the persistence of it. I wish I would have had more tools to solve my situation. I felt trapped, like I didn't have a way to make it right. It came down to a point where I thought it was best to remove myself from the situation."
Martin left the team and checked into a hospital for emotional distress to deal before moving back to California with his parents. He has been working on a report about what exactly happened during his time on the team. His coming forward led to teammate Richie Incognito being suspended for eight games and not allowed on the field during an official NFL investigation, which will be released after the Super Bowl.
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Incognito was behind part of the bullying and left threatening messages on Martin's voicemail. It's still unknown whether Incognito will return to the Dolphins for the next season.
"I've spoken to former teammates in locker rooms across the NFL and asked, 'Does this stuff go on?' and the consensus was [that] this was not normal," Martin said on NBC. "Comments of racial nature … aggressive, sexual comments related to my sister and my mother … I don't think there's any place for that. Other people got it too; I can't say why I got it more. I was trying with all my being to do whatever I could to be a member of this culture."
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said he was proud of the way the NFL handled the situation.
"In my mind, I know what direction we're going," Ross said at a press conference. "The respect that we gained by how we handled the situation that took place here says a lot about this organization and the people that are running it."
