Here is a piece of important information for fans of electronic communication. E-mails never go away. They live forever in cyberspace, just waiting for somebody to come looking for them.
This piece of intelligence now resides in the football Jon Gruden uses for a brain after the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders discovered it the other day. He now needs the word “former’’ in front of his title.
Gruden always had a reputation as a rather unpleasant fellow, which is why he is nicknamed “Chuckie” after the nasty character who routinely commits mayhem in horror movies.
So it was no surprise that when the NFL detectives went snooping around the Washington Football Team’s archives. it stumbled across some of Gruden’s e-mails to old buddy Bruce Allen, another upstanding football citizen.
In them, Chuckie Gruden let fly with an impressive stream of insults, much of it employing homophobic and misogynistic language and directed at a variety of individuals, starting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
Among Chuckie’s complaints were Goodell’s interest in making the game safer for the players, reducing the rash of concussions and other debilitating injuries. That flew in the face of Chuckie’s macho man approach to the game, delivered from the safety of the sidelines and the broadcast booth.
Chuckie also objected to Goodell’s expanding the scope of the NFL, hiring women as officials, encouraging teams to accept players who might be gay. The commissioner supported the drafting of a gay player, Michael Sam, in 2014, clearly offending Chuckie’s “tough guys only need apply,’’ approach to football. One wonders what he thought when one of his own players, defensive lineman Carl Nassib, announced last summer that he was … oh my god, what is this game coming to? … a gay football player. And right there, under Chuckie’s nose all the time.
Chuckie also had some disgusting words about DeMaurice Smith, head of the NFL Players Association, and poked his nose right into the White House to insult then President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden.
If nothing else, Chuckie is an equal opportunity offender.
When the e-mails surfaced, as they always might, Gruden’s cushy 10-year, $100 million contract as Raiders coach ended rather quickly. He went out the door insisting that he is not a racist and did not want to be a distraction to his beloved team and that he never meant to hurt anyone.
Chucky, who is getting his own television gig this fall, would be disappointed to learn that.