We’ll know soon enough whether Tunsil had issues or was immature

SHARE We’ll know soon enough whether Tunsil had issues or was immature
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Former Mississippi offensive lineman Laremy Tunsil poses with Dolphins coach Adam Gase (left) and executive VP Mike Tannenbaum. | AP

I’ve been out of college for quite a while, but I remember some pretty nutso stuff my pals and I did back when we were young and foolish. But the gas-mask thing is new to me.

When I first saw the captured screen shot of Laremy Tunsil, the Ole Miss offensive tackle taken 13th in the NFL draft by the Dolphins, I thought it might be a still from a Quentin Tarantino film or a close-up of a Robert Mapplethorpe model.

Nope, it was Tunsil wearing a bug-eyed gas mask with a bong full of smoke attached. Let’s go out on a limb and say the bong was full of marijuana smoke.

What a way to get wasted.

I didn’t see the video from which the screen shot was snatched, but word is Tunsil emerges from the vapor cloud coughing and laughing, baked and fried, wasted and wacky.

I remember a college-football pal drinking 17 shots of peppermint schnapps on his 21st birthday. I remember people ‘‘shooting’’ beer cans at parties. I remember togas and punch mixed in new garbage cans with 190-proof Everclear. I remember my own self taking a hatchet to the back door of our rented house so our dogs could come and go freely.

But a gas mask? No.

So what we have here with Tunsil and this documentation of dubious behavior is a referendum on our national feelings about pot use, youthful indiscretion and a person’s ability to change with age — to be reborn, if you will.

I have no interest in marijuana. I ‘‘smelled’’ it long ago, but if there were a pile of it here on the table — free and legal — I wouldn’t touch it.

I found my drug of choice — alcohol — almost a half-century ago. (Caffeine is a nice second.)

But if much of America — particularly the young, the stressed and those in pain — finds the effects of pot to be calming, pleasant or therapeutic, then what is the moral damage of using the drug?

On Friday, this very newspaper ran a full-page editorial that stated possessing small amounts of marijuana should be decriminalized in Illinois. It already has been done in other states. Medical marijuana is legal in many places. In Colorado, anybody 21 or older can fire up a joint. You don’t even have to be a resident.

But Tunsil hasn’t been greeted warmly by the NFL. Once projected as the first or second overall pick, his character is in question, not helped at all by evidence he received money from coaches at Mississippi.

The gas mask is just the cherry on top of the character issue. When you fall 10 or so places in the draft without breaking your leg or measuring several inches shorter than your listed height, that’s the character issue biting you hard. That’s millions of dollars lost.

But what if Tunsil is actually a maturing 21-year-old who made mistakes, isn’t an addict and just wants to play ball?

Former Mississippi teammate Robert Nkemdiche says Tunsil is a good guy. Of course, Nkemdiche fell out of a hotel window in December, pot was found in the room from which he plunged and he told police Tunsil was in the room with him.

So maybe the Dolphins have taken a huge risk. Or maybe they have the steal of the draft.

If you recall, defensive tackle Warren Sapp fell all the way to No. 12 in the 1995 draft after testing positive in a predraft drug test. How did Sapp do as a pro? Whatever you think of his character, he is now a deserved member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

And then there is Johnny Manziel, whose drinking problems were well-documented while he was in college. He was drafted in the first round in 2014 but already is out of the league. He is a bust of such proportions that we worry more about his life than his career.

On Thursday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told Chicago high school students that NFL draftees are wonderful human beings of strong fiber and integrity who are deserving of hero worship.

‘‘They wanted to be great NFL players but, more important, great men,’’ Goodell said. ‘‘And they are.’’

Nonsense. They’re no better than the rest of us.

Laremy Tunsil, you’re on the clock.

Follow me on Twitter @ricktelander.

Email: rtelander@suntimes.com

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