Before the draft, Seahawks receiver Golden Tate boasted that he won’t be a problem because he knows how to make “tough decisions.”
His first incident in the NFL apparently arose from a friend’s inability to do the same.
Tate has learned a thing or two from his former quarterback regarding the art of throwing a friend under the bus. “A buddy made the mistake of going in, grabbing a couple,” Tate said, per Danny O’Neil of the Seattle Times. “We ate them. Nothing much to the story other than that.”
Still, Tate apologized for the incident at a Bellevue, Washington Top Pot donut store. “This is the wrong type of media I want to bring to the organization,” Tate said. “I apologize to the team, the coaches and even Top Pot.”
He should be thanking Top Pot, too. As we understand it, Tate didn’t do a perp walk because Top Pot chose not to press charges. (And Top Pot should be thanking Tate for the free advertising.)
Tate also explained he received only a warning for trespassing, not a citation or a ticket. “Just kind of said, ‘Don’t do it again.’ Which I won’t,” Tate said.
Coach Pete Carroll shrugged off the situation, while acknowledging that it’s never a good idea to take food from a store that isn’t open. “I’m not disappointed in a guy being in a donut shop when they’ve got maple bars like Top Pot has,” Carroll said. “However, under the circumstances I think they were closed or . . . something like that. . . . We talked about it, and he’s most remorseful about it and all that. I do understand the allure of the maple bars.”
So Tate has learned his lesson. “I’m very embarrassed to even have my name a part of this,” he said. “Before now, I’ve never had some trouble in any type of school or anything. I’d rather learn on this than have something a few months or years down the road that’s a lot bigger and me being arrested or cited for something. So this is definitely a lesson learned for me, and next time, I’m just going to have my buddy go in and buy them instead.”
That’ll be hard to do if the store is, you know, closed. Maybe they can just leave their money in the cash register.