Mark Sanchez talked about the Deadspin story about his alleged romance with a teenage girl yesterday on Fox Sports Radio. Sports Radio Interviews has the transcript.
"You know it’s just one of those things that it’s an internet deal and I mean you know this very well being in the media. I’m playing in New York. One of the biggest cities in the country and you’re going to get scrutiny on-and-off the field, no matter what you do. You know you just gotta be smart about who you hang out with and it’s not even worth talking about at this point anymore. It’s a few months old. It’s just that’s the nature of gossip in the city. I mean that’s kind of the way things go and it’s…you know this better than anybody. I mean people embellish stories, fabricate stories, to try to drive traffic to their website, to try and get people to start talking about their publication. It didn’t bother me. It was just too bad that somebody had to go do stuff like that, but it’s a probably a great lesson about playing in New York and being in the spotlight. You know you learn from those things. Just I think yesterday they were talking… somebody told me about me hanging out with Hayden Panettiere. I was like yeah okay let’s be smart here. She’s got a boyfriend. Her family is like all Jets fans. She’s from New York, so we have some mutual friends. She knows one of my best friends Scotty [McKnight]."
Sanchez hits the nail on the head. As a public figure in New York, he is going to get attention, even for stuff that frankly does not deserve it. Not understanding lessons like these has thrown off a lot of young stars in the past. Learning this can only help him.