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Terry Foster: Eric Ebron Needs To Mature

By Terry Foster
@TerryFoster971

I was blocked by Lions tight end Eric Ebron on Twitter Thursday during a wild and wacky show with Jamie Samuelson. Some of my funny listeners joked that Ebron blocks better on social media than he does on the field.

You guys are crazy.

But let's get back to the block. I was trying to help the guy when I suggested it was in his best interest to remove photos of a profanity laced T-shirt he was designing. He represents the Detroit Lions and the NFL and I am sure they would not like seeing one of their players posting four letter words for the public to see. I had my dad moment with Ebron and he took it the wrong way.

I was not ripping the guy. I thought I was passing along fatherly advice.

He actually did a good job of designing the shirts. The logos looked nice. There were some slick designs. But the one shirt does not cut it.

He is a young guy with a bright future. However, when you are young you feel invincible and believe the world is against you. I get it. I used to be there. Now I feel older and wiser and there are things I did at 27 that I would never do at 57. My message to Ebron is he must learn to be a professional.

He is a celebrity. He represents the Lions and there are certain things you cannot do. It is not fair at times, but that is life. There are things I could not do when I wrote for the Detroit News. There are things I cannot do while representing 97.1 The Ticket.

I joked with my boss that I wanted to post my new T-shirt design with the F-word and the S-word on it. For a split second he did not know I was joking and he appeared to have a mini stroke.
In other words it is something I cannot do as a representative of the radio station. That was the point I was making to Ebron.

I have covered professional sports for more than three decades. I see athletes mature and they seem to get it around age 27. Before that they want to perform and make money. At age 27 they are thinking championships, image and are settling down.

Ebron will look back on this and smile some day.

Maybe he is even maturing as we speak. He took the image down and I got unblocked on twitter.

** Join me next week when I give you a sneak preview of the new Red Wings arena and the planned neighborhood surrounding it.

(Foster can be reached at Terry.Foster@cbsradio.com)

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