Sports

Standing Up For Beast Mode

January 30, 2015 / 10:13 AM CST / CBS Texas

By Cory Mageors | @inthemageors

105.3 THE FAN -- Not that he needs anybody to stand up for him, but I am beginning to understand Marshawn Lynch's perspective more and more.

I became fascinated with the question yesterday when he was so indignant towards the media:

Why does he have such disdain for media?
Why does he act like a guy who has been burned by the media?
Why does he have such strong emotions to be disciplined in a bad guy character?

Then he said: "But when I'm at home with my family, I never see ya'll."

Then a media member asked him about his inner cities work, and that's when the human element came out in Beast Mode.

"Come to them inner cities, and then holler at me then."

That's when it hit me.

That's when I realized the bad guy character is just that. It's a façade; it's a way to protect himself. There is another side of Lynch that the Super Bowl Media doesn't see, and he's not about to make it easy for them to crack the shell.

The media will run to cover Lynch Fined, Lynch Grabs Crotch, Beast Mode this and Beast Mode that. Sometimes media members seek out that catchy, meaty, easy headline to fill content for the day, but there is a deeper story involved.

After I read this piece by Michael Silver, I may have changed the way I feel about Lynch forever.

I know I laughed at his "I didn't know nothing about no snow" comment, and I really truly love his passion about buying his teammates sizzler.

But after I found out where he's from and what he does, I think I get it.

Lynch is from Oakland, and he never really left. He pours himself into Oakland Technical High School where he spends his time, attempting to guide the lives of or provide some sort of perspective for them. Like the time he told a tech student to take his Benz to the prom.

He isn't honored on the walls there, which is kind of the selfless nature of what Beast Mode is trying to be.

He's playing a tough guy in front of the cameras, a tough guy from Oakland, and it makes a bunch of stuffy white shirts very uncomfortable because he's not doing exactly what they ask of him.

In his mind, he could spend that 6 minutes of time helping somebody else rather than talking to the media about a football game.

Now, this rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

But the idea of stay true to yourself and true to where you are from is playing out in front of our eyes.

Media members have to get a story, and I wonder if we took the time to dig into what Lynch does off the field, if he would be more cordial.

I wonder if we all had the time to spend in Oakland at Tech with him and watching him and pitching in a helping hand, if Beast Mode would be a little more of a Gentle Giant.

I don't think a huge crowd of media members asking about the Patriots defensive unit or the deflated balls is going to be able to crack Lynch. I seriously don't think attacking his credibility with the kids is going to get him to talk either.

What it seems like he's saying without really saying is "come find the real story."

Now, is his route of combativeness the most political way of garnering media love? No.

He's definitely not making it easy for media members to do their job, but then again when he takes the hand off from Russell Wilson, I don't think I have ever seen a single defender try to make it easy for him to do his job either.

Listen to Cory on the K&C Masterpiece, weeknights 7-11 p.m. on 105.3 The Fan!