In October 2017, NFL owners met behind
closed doors to discuss the League’s response to the “Anthem” controversy, “to kneel, or not to kneel,” that was the question. During the meeting, Houston Texans’ owner
Robert McNair spoke up in support of imposing a rule requiring players to stand
for the anthem. He had the temerity to use an uncommon variant of a well-known,
everyday idiom to make his point.
“We can’t have the inmates running the
prison,” he said.
The players were not amused.
Some players claim to have been offended
at being referred to as “inmates.” Jesse
Jackson complained that the comments reflect a “plantation mentality.” But the kerfuffle may display a misunderstanding of, or lack of familiarity with, a common idiom on both McNair's and the players' part, than anything so insidious.
The players' high school English teachers could be offended by the fact that the players mistook what was clearly a variant of
an innocent, common idiom that should never be taken literally. And McNair’s high school English teacher
might be offended by the fact that he mangled the more common form of the idiom,
which despairs of inmates running the “asylum,” not the prison.
Of course it’s not nice to call someone
a lunatic either, but as is the case with most idioms, invoking it doesn’t suggest
(and shouldn’t be taken as suggesting) that the players are literally “inmates”
of an asylum, much less a prison.
The players should not be surprised that the idiom was used against them. They
join a long line of powerful entertainment luminaries at the receiving end of
the idiom, many of whom went on to gain the power, influence and monetary rewards they
sought. The idiom itself appears to have
originated, or at least come into widespread public awareness, among
entertainment executives critical of entertainers using their star power to
exercise more influence over their talents and take a bigger piece of the pie.
Today’s NFL players are not the first
sports figures to be called “inmates.” It
is not even the first time the NFL Players’ Union have been figuratively called
“inmates.”
In 1982, during the
first NFL strike that would ultimately win a 55% profit-sharing arrangement
for the players, NFL Hall of Famer Hank Stram said:
. . . the players could never win their demand for a
percentage of gross receipts, because “you can’t let
the inmates run the asylum.”[i]
Hank Stram was ultimately proved wrong.
In 1978, aging former tennis star Jack
Kramer worried about the effect of latter-day
superstardom on the unity of professional tennis.
The inmates run the asylum.
“The superstars like Connors, Borg and Vilas are laws
unto themselves,” said Kramer, who turned pro in 1947 after winning his second
straight Forest Hills. “They play
exhibitions whenever they so please, or simply skip a tournament altogether.
“Someone likie Nastase, who was suspended at
Wimbledon, takes advantage of the lack of central control and continues to play
team tennis.[ii]
Jack Kramer was ultimately proven wrong.
In 1975, NBA coaching legend Pat Riley,
then a player, made waves when the Lakers traded him to Phoenix and he refused
to play out his option and rejected a new contract that would reportedly have
given him a 25% raise.
Veteran guard Pat Riley, acquired from the Los Angeles
Lakers this week, was suspended Wednesday by the Phoenix Suns for failure to
report to the National Basketball Association club. “We are not going to
let the inmates run the asylum,” said Jerry Colangelo, the Suns’ general
manager.[iii]
Also in 1975, sportswriter Bill Conklin
criticized the Major League Players’ Union when they took a poll to rate umpires.
It was preposterous.
Here again were the inmates running the asylum.[iv]
The idiom, like many pop-culture trends,
may have originated in Hollywood. It
first came into widespread public use during the time when the star system
started to destroy the old-time studio system.
Studio heads bemoaned the newfound power and influence of big-name stars.
But the boss of another [Hollywood] studio commented:
“The star system has got way out of hand.
We’ve let the inmates run the asylum and
they’ve practically destroyed it.”[v]
 |
Mt.
Vernon Register-News (Mt. Vernon,
Illinois), June 12, 1962, page 7.
|
The earliest, widely published example of the idiom I ran
across was made in reference to comedian Red Skelton buying his own studio.
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) – Filmtown has been described as a place where the inmates run the asylum.
One inmate, Red Skelton, soon will
be running his own little asylum – the first comedian since Charlie
Chaplin to boast his own movie factory.[vi]
The expression had been kicking around
Hollywood for awhile. It was well-known
enough in 1952 that Arthur
Loeb Mayer (not Louis B.) planned to call his book on the history of the
film industry, “The Inmates Have Taken Over the Asylum.” Perhaps it is a sign that the expression was
not yet widely known that he (or the publishers) changed the title to “Merely
Colossal.”[vii]
The earliest known example of the
expression[viii]
dates to perhaps the earliest example of film artists wresting control of the
means of production from the businessmen’s hands. Upon hearing the news that D. W. Griffith,
Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were pooling their wealth
and talent to form United Artists studio in 1919, Richard Rowland, then the head of
Metro Pictures Corporation, is said to have remarked:
“The lunatics have taken charge of the asylum.”[ix]
But regardless of its point of origin,
today’s NFL players should take heart in the fact that many of the same people
who were historically and metaphorically referred to as inmates of an asylum ultimately
had the last laugh.
Only time will tell which inmates (and I
mean that metaphorically), players or owners, will wind up running the NFL
asylum.
Readers of this
article might also enjoy:
[i] The Windsor Beacon (Windsor, Colorado),
September 23, 1982, page 4.
[ii] Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville,
North Carolina), August 20, 1978, page 11.
[iii] Panama City News-Herald (Panama City,
Florida), November 6, 1975, page 22.
[iv] Clovis News-Journal (Clovis, New
Mexico), February 2, 1975, page 16.
[v] The Iola Register (Iola, Kansas), June
12, 1962, page 1.
[vi] The Republic (Columbus, Indiana), June
24, 1960, page 5.
[vii] The Philadelphia Inquirer
(Pennsylvania), December 30, 1952, page 19 (“Arthur Mayer’s new book about
Hollywood, “Merely Colossal,” originally was titled, “The Inmates Have Taken
Over the Asylum.” Mr. Mayer also wanted
his author’s listing as “not Louis B.”.
[ix] Terry
Ramsaye, A Million and One Nights: A
History of the Motion Picture, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1926, page
795.
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