Doug Gottlieb, a college basketball analyst for Fox Sports, published an emotional essay on The Athletic (February 12th), detailing his infamous Notre Dame exit. The story was raw and revealing, giving the public, at least to my knowledge, the first play-by-play account of how and why he stole credit cards from his Notre Dame classmates.

Twenty-two years removed from the incident, it’s clear that Gottlieb still feels shame over what he did. Judging from the details, it’s easy to understand why. There wasn’t any rationale for what he did, he simply could not resist the urge and wanted some new gear to make himself feel better. He was eventually caught but went on to have a great career at Oklahoma State.

When something cathartic like this happens to someone, it’s easy to feel all alone out on an island. But the truth of it is, people steal all the time. Maybe it’s not something tangible, like in Gottlieb’s case, but I’ve stolen, you’ve stolen, and your mother and father have as well. Any time you take a personal call at work, you’re essentially stealing from your employer. Long lunch, same thing. Yet, we don’t harbor the same guilt as Gottlieb. Sure, he stole more, and I understand that. But to have, like he mentions in the piece, internet trolls still coming at him? Well, that’s just a shame.

It’s like he’s being punished for a successful career. Had he not pulled himself up by his bootstraps and made something of himself, he’d never hear from strangers about the mistakes he made as a kid. Think about it, if you put a microscope on the lives of internet trolls, you’d come up with dirt. Yet they still ridicule blue-checked accounts, banging away in an attempt, like Gottlieb, to make themselves feel better. It’s a wicked cycle; a lot of times the act of trolling is worse than the act they’re actually trolling.

Doug Gottlieb was a freshman when he did what he did, his first time away from home. In the years following, he paid restitution and a whole lot more that can’t even be quantified. The act has been redeemed, even if he still beats himself up over it. Now, it’s time for the beatings to stop from the outside. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and by all means, piling on, especially 22 years later, is wrong.

You can read Gottlieb’s article here.