Hammock Parties
05-05-2010, 01:08 PM
Call Guinness, we've identified the world's biggest douche.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1169185/index.htm
Long article, so here are excerpts.
Roethlisberger was riding his black 2005 Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle, helmetless and without a permit, in downtown Pittsburgh when he collided with a Chrysler New Yorker. Roethlisberger hit the windshield, rolled over the roof of the car and struck the ground headfirst. He suffered a broken jaw and nose and underwent seven hours of surgery. "If I ever ride again," he said afterward, "it certainly will be with a helmet."
A few months after the accident, a reporter and a cameraman for KDKA-TV, the CBS affiliate that broadcasts Steelers games, were driving on I-376 in Pittsburgh when they saw two men on motorcycles and recognized one as Roethlisberger, who was not wearing a helmet. They began shooting footage, which showed Roethlisberger giving them the finger as he sped away, but the video never aired.
The station's news director at the time, John Verrilli, and its current assistant news director, Anne Linaberger, deny that any such tape existed, but several people who saw the video gave SI similar accounts of the tape; sources believe the story was killed out of fear that it would damage KDKA's relationship with the Steelers. "If we had been the other affiliate [which doesn't broadcast the games]," says one of the people who saw the tape, "it would have been A-1 news." (A neighbor who lives near Roethlisberger in a tony section of Gibsonia, Pa., but did not want to be named has also seen the quarterback on his motorcycle. "I've never seen him with a helmet," the neighbor said.) On July 11, 2008, at Harrah's Lake Tahoe, Roethlisberger allegedly called hotel employee Andrea McNulty to his room to fix a television that turned out to be in proper working order. In a civil suit filed a year later, McNulty claims Roethlisberger groped her and penetrated her against her will. Roethlisberger denies McNulty's account and has declined to comment on specifics.
McNulty says she reported the incident to her superiors but that they did nothing about it. She contends that her boss, Dave Monroe, the vice president of food and hotel operations, told her that Roethlisberger was a close friend of Harrah's Northern Nevada president John Koster, and that Koster "will personally fire you for starting rumors about Roethlisberger's personal life." McNulty said she was told by Monroe, "That guy [Roethlisberger] can have anyone he wants."Four days before the McNulty incident, Roethlisberger visited Cabo Wabo Cantina on the grounds of the Harrah's resort with Joyner, Barravecchio and a female friend. There, according to a lawsuit filed by former Cabo Wabo waiter Alvaro Brito, the group "mocked, made fun of and mimicked" Brito while he asked the woman for I.D. to prove she was 21. (Roethlisberger produced the I.D., which showed her to be 27.) As the quarterback left, the lawsuit alleges, he asked Brito if he knew who Koster was and told Brito that Koster was a friend of his. A few days later Brito, who had worked for Harrah's for 12 years and earned $47,000 a year, was fired. He says he was told that the order came from Koster and that it resulted from the encounter with Roethlisberger's group.A man who agreed to be identified only by his first name, Craig, says that a few weeks before the Milledgeville incident, he overheard Roethlisberger making lewd comments to a pregnant waitress at a Pittsburgh T.G.I. Friday's. The waitress, when asked last week, recalled Roethlisberger's saying such things as, "Did your boyfriend forget to pull out?"Mark Baranowski, owner of the popular Cabana Bar in Pittsburgh, says that when the quarterback first came in with a group of hangers-on a few years ago, he refused to pay the $5 cover and used a variation on the Do you know who I am? line to intimidate an employee at the door. At a party Roethlisberger held at the Cabana Bar on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of his motorcycle accident, Baranowski got upset that Roethlisberger's posse rounded up women to come to his VIP area while intimidating customers into deleting cellphone photos of the QB. (His bodyguards allegedly did the same things in Milledgeville.) Roethlisberger agreed to sign a few items, for which he was going to receive free drinks, but Baranowski says he did it sloppily and halfheartedly. The fed-up owner decided Roethlisberger had to pay the cover from then on, which prompted a call from a Steelers security man who wanted to know why the quarterback was banned. Baranowski, through an intermediary, told the staffer Roethlisberger wasn't banned but added, "Tell him he's an arrogant a------, and every Steeler can get in without a cover except him." Roethlisberger has not been back to the Cabana Bar.After most home games Roethlisberger and several other players head to the Fox and Hound English Pub & Grille. The quarterback would get no customer-of-the-month awards there, either. On at least two occasions Roethlisberger walked out without his tab having been paid (someone else in his party usually does so); one employee remembers a waitress chasing him into the parking lot yelling, "Hey! You owe me money!" as Roethlisberger climbed into his SUV. (He did pay when she caught up to him.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1169185/index.htm
Long article, so here are excerpts.
Roethlisberger was riding his black 2005 Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle, helmetless and without a permit, in downtown Pittsburgh when he collided with a Chrysler New Yorker. Roethlisberger hit the windshield, rolled over the roof of the car and struck the ground headfirst. He suffered a broken jaw and nose and underwent seven hours of surgery. "If I ever ride again," he said afterward, "it certainly will be with a helmet."
A few months after the accident, a reporter and a cameraman for KDKA-TV, the CBS affiliate that broadcasts Steelers games, were driving on I-376 in Pittsburgh when they saw two men on motorcycles and recognized one as Roethlisberger, who was not wearing a helmet. They began shooting footage, which showed Roethlisberger giving them the finger as he sped away, but the video never aired.
The station's news director at the time, John Verrilli, and its current assistant news director, Anne Linaberger, deny that any such tape existed, but several people who saw the video gave SI similar accounts of the tape; sources believe the story was killed out of fear that it would damage KDKA's relationship with the Steelers. "If we had been the other affiliate [which doesn't broadcast the games]," says one of the people who saw the tape, "it would have been A-1 news." (A neighbor who lives near Roethlisberger in a tony section of Gibsonia, Pa., but did not want to be named has also seen the quarterback on his motorcycle. "I've never seen him with a helmet," the neighbor said.) On July 11, 2008, at Harrah's Lake Tahoe, Roethlisberger allegedly called hotel employee Andrea McNulty to his room to fix a television that turned out to be in proper working order. In a civil suit filed a year later, McNulty claims Roethlisberger groped her and penetrated her against her will. Roethlisberger denies McNulty's account and has declined to comment on specifics.
McNulty says she reported the incident to her superiors but that they did nothing about it. She contends that her boss, Dave Monroe, the vice president of food and hotel operations, told her that Roethlisberger was a close friend of Harrah's Northern Nevada president John Koster, and that Koster "will personally fire you for starting rumors about Roethlisberger's personal life." McNulty said she was told by Monroe, "That guy [Roethlisberger] can have anyone he wants."Four days before the McNulty incident, Roethlisberger visited Cabo Wabo Cantina on the grounds of the Harrah's resort with Joyner, Barravecchio and a female friend. There, according to a lawsuit filed by former Cabo Wabo waiter Alvaro Brito, the group "mocked, made fun of and mimicked" Brito while he asked the woman for I.D. to prove she was 21. (Roethlisberger produced the I.D., which showed her to be 27.) As the quarterback left, the lawsuit alleges, he asked Brito if he knew who Koster was and told Brito that Koster was a friend of his. A few days later Brito, who had worked for Harrah's for 12 years and earned $47,000 a year, was fired. He says he was told that the order came from Koster and that it resulted from the encounter with Roethlisberger's group.A man who agreed to be identified only by his first name, Craig, says that a few weeks before the Milledgeville incident, he overheard Roethlisberger making lewd comments to a pregnant waitress at a Pittsburgh T.G.I. Friday's. The waitress, when asked last week, recalled Roethlisberger's saying such things as, "Did your boyfriend forget to pull out?"Mark Baranowski, owner of the popular Cabana Bar in Pittsburgh, says that when the quarterback first came in with a group of hangers-on a few years ago, he refused to pay the $5 cover and used a variation on the Do you know who I am? line to intimidate an employee at the door. At a party Roethlisberger held at the Cabana Bar on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of his motorcycle accident, Baranowski got upset that Roethlisberger's posse rounded up women to come to his VIP area while intimidating customers into deleting cellphone photos of the QB. (His bodyguards allegedly did the same things in Milledgeville.) Roethlisberger agreed to sign a few items, for which he was going to receive free drinks, but Baranowski says he did it sloppily and halfheartedly. The fed-up owner decided Roethlisberger had to pay the cover from then on, which prompted a call from a Steelers security man who wanted to know why the quarterback was banned. Baranowski, through an intermediary, told the staffer Roethlisberger wasn't banned but added, "Tell him he's an arrogant a------, and every Steeler can get in without a cover except him." Roethlisberger has not been back to the Cabana Bar.After most home games Roethlisberger and several other players head to the Fox and Hound English Pub & Grille. The quarterback would get no customer-of-the-month awards there, either. On at least two occasions Roethlisberger walked out without his tab having been paid (someone else in his party usually does so); one employee remembers a waitress chasing him into the parking lot yelling, "Hey! You owe me money!" as Roethlisberger climbed into his SUV. (He did pay when she caught up to him.