{"id":46349,"date":"2025-09-06T08:04:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T12:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=46349"},"modified":"2025-09-06T08:04:01","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T12:04:01","slug":"the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html","title":{"rendered":"The Spit Seen Round the World Could Be a Teachable Moment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Left: All-Pro Reels \/ commons.wikimedia.org | Right: Sarah Bellia \/ commons.wikimedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The NFL season started Thursday night, with a marquee matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and their bitter rivals, the Dallas Cowboys.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Would Philadelphia get off to a good start defending their Super Bowl title from last season? Could Dallas pull an upset?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But just as they were getting started \u2013 six seconds into the game \u2013 Jalen Carter, the star defensive tackle for the Eagles, was thrown out of the game for spitting on Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott!<\/span><\/p>\n

Sports fans were rightfully shocked, but to be honest, this wasn\u2019t the first time a player had spit on an opposing player. (Just last week, Luis Suarez of Inter Miami spit on a representative of Seattle Sounders after Seattle defeated Miami in the Leagues Cup.) That doesn\u2019t excuse Carter\u2019s behavior, of course, but it provides some important context.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Specifically, while people often idolize their favorite stars (whether sports stars as in this case, or famous entertainers or political leaders), incidents like this one demonstrate an important fact: no one is perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n

Parents, teachers, and religious mentors can use this as a teachable moment. But how?<\/span><\/p>\n

First, remember that no one is perfect. People make \u201cmistakes\u201d \u2013 on many levels, and to many degrees. When situations like this occur, instead of excusing the behavior, it\u2019s better to acknowledge that it was wrong. It\u2019s hard to imagine anything more disrespectful than spitting on another person. Start from the perspective that the behavior in question was wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

But don\u2019t stop there; the next step is to consider why it happened. Why did Jalen Carter spit on Dak Prescott? Several factors could have contributed to his actions. The video of the game shows that Prescott spit on the ground \u2013 perhaps in Carter\u2019s direction \u2013 before Carter spit on him. That\u2019s not an \u201cexcuse,\u201d but it could be a factor. Also, the long-standing rivalry between Dallas and Philadelphia may have played a part. The teams play each other at least twice each year \u2013 three times if they meet in the playoffs. As the old saying says, \u201cFamiliarity breeds contempt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The nature of football in general also could have been a factor. Football is played by strong men; it\u2019s a violent game. As someone once said, football is not a \u201ccontact\u201d sport; it\u2019s a collision sport. Accounts of the ways that players get \u201cpsyched up\u201d before a game are legendary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the second \u201cteaching point\u201d: people need to be aware of their surroundings and their circumstances, and the ways that those factors influence their emotions and behavior. For instance, if driving makes someone \u201cedgy\u201d \u2013 or even angry \u2013 what steps might they take to alleviate those feelings?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From the spiritual perspective, incidents like this one provide the opportunity to remind children, students, and others to \u201cfixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith\u201d (<\/span>Hebrews 12:2<\/span><\/a>). It\u2019s natural to look up to sports heroes, entertainers, and other leaders, but remember that those people are \u201conly human.\u201d Cheer for their accomplishments when appropriate, but also watch how they deal with their failures. In this instance, Carter acknowledged that his conduct was unacceptable. \u201cIt was a mistake that happened on my side, and it just won\u2019t happen again.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Public apologies are excellent teaching opportunities. An apology that \u201cI was wrong, and it won\u2019t happen again\u201d demonstrates how to take responsibility for a failure. On the other hand, \u201cI\u2019m sorry if I hurt anyone\u201d doesn\u2019t fully acknowledge that the behavior was wrong; instead, the apology focuses on the result. \u201cI\u2019m sorry that my behavior came across wrong\u201d is even worse; it shifts responsibility to the other person. Carter\u2019s use of the word \u201cmistake\u201d might not be ideal (\u201cmistake\u201d can be used to describe unintentional behavior), but he took full responsibility and committed to not repeat his \u201cmistake.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another important step is to broaden the focus beyond this one event, and consider other actions or statements that reflect on the person\u2019s overall character.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, the night before Super Bowl XXXIII, Eugene Robinson was <\/span>arrested<\/span><\/a> for soliciting an undercover police officer for sex. Worse yet, Robinson had been honored by Athletes in Action just a few hours before his arrest for his \u201chigh moral character.\u201d Robinson\u2019s actions were bad enough, but the fact that he held himself out as a devout Christian made them even worse. \u201cSo, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don\u2019t fall!\u201d (<\/span>1 Corinthians 10:12<\/span><\/a>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Cheer for your favorite players and entertainers. Support leaders who support and share your values. Encourage your children to do so. But don\u2019t forget players are human. And don\u2019t ignore their failings. Their mistakes \u2013 and the ways they respond to them \u2013 can be excellent \u201cteaching moments.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, sometimes the lesson is, \u201cDon\u2019t do what they did.\u201d You can cheer for the team, or enjoy their music, but don\u2019t follow their example. They didn\u2019t admit what they did was wrong. They blamed other people. They looked for an excuse rather than acknowledging their failure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But other times, the lesson is more positive. Sometimes, the lesson is, \u201cLook how they acknowledged their failure. They know what they did was wrong, and they\u2019ve apologized.\u201d Everybody makes mistakes. Nobody is perfect! Learn \u2013 and teach others \u2013 to acknowledge their mistakes, and to forgive others when they \u201cdrop the ball.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0After all, Jesus taught His disciples: \u201cWhen you pray, say\u2026Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us\u201d (<\/span>Luke 11:2-4<\/span><\/a>).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NFL season started Thursday night, with a marquee matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and their bitter rivals, the Dallas Cowboys.\u00a0 Would Philadelphia get off to a good start defending their Super Bowl title from last season? Could Dallas pull an upset?\u00a0 But just as they were getting started \u2013 six seconds into the game…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":46352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Spit Seen Round the World Could Be a Teachable Moment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Eagles\u2019 Jalen Carter shocked fans by spitting on Dak Prescott, but his apology offers a powerful lesson: nobody is perfect.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Spit Seen Round the World Could Be a Teachable Moment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eagles\u2019 Jalen Carter shocked fans by spitting on Dak Prescott, but his apology offers a powerful lesson: nobody is perfect.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-06T12:04:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/09\/Prescott-Carter_credit-Left-All-Pro-Reels-wikimedia-Right-Sarah-Bellia-wikimedia.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rick Rice\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Spit Seen Round the World Could Be a Teachable Moment","description":"Eagles\u2019 Jalen Carter shocked fans by spitting on Dak Prescott, but his apology offers a powerful lesson: nobody is perfect.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Spit Seen Round the World Could Be a Teachable Moment","og_description":"Eagles\u2019 Jalen Carter shocked fans by spitting on Dak Prescott, but his apology offers a powerful lesson: nobody is perfect.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2025-09-06T12:04:01+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/09\/Prescott-Carter_credit-Left-All-Pro-Reels-wikimedia-Right-Sarah-Bellia-wikimedia.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Rick Rice","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html","name":"The Spit Seen Round the World Could Be a Teachable Moment","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/09\/Prescott-Carter_credit-Left-All-Pro-Reels-wikimedia-Right-Sarah-Bellia-wikimedia.jpg","datePublished":"2025-09-06T12:04:01+00:00","dateModified":"2025-09-06T12:04:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Eagles\u2019 Jalen Carter shocked fans by spitting on Dak Prescott, but his apology offers a powerful lesson: nobody is perfect.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/09\/Prescott-Carter_credit-Left-All-Pro-Reels-wikimedia-Right-Sarah-Bellia-wikimedia.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/09\/Prescott-Carter_credit-Left-All-Pro-Reels-wikimedia-Right-Sarah-Bellia-wikimedia.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Left: All-Pro Reels \/ commons.wikimedia.org | Right: Sarah Bellia \/ commons.wikimedia.org"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/09\/the-spit-seen-round-the-world-could-be-a-teachable-moment.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Spit Seen Round the World Could Be a Teachable Moment"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","caption":"Brandy Grenier"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46355,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46349\/revisions\/46355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}