Family defends Mitchell Miller after Coyotes stab him in the back.

The Arizona Coyotes have had a lot to be embarrassed lately but their recent betrayal of 4th round draft selection Mitchell Miller may top the list. The Coyotes announced this week that they were renouncing the rights to Miller as a draft pick after details regarding his past began to make their way into the public conscious, details that rightfully shocked and appalled those who read the story. 

In case you missed it, Miller was convicted of bullying a mentally disabled teen at his high school when both boys were 14 years old and there's good evidence to suggest that the bullying was motivated by the victim's race. Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, the boy that Miller was convicted of abusing, is black and confirmed to multiple media outlets that Miller had routinely directed racial slurs in his direction and frequently made him the target of racial abuse.

The Coyotes, like every other team in the National Hockey League, no doubt were made aware of this story when they looked into Miller's background and although they will no doubt claim that they did not have the full scope of the details, I'm not buying it. What that means is the team chose to overlook his character flaws, or perhaps even felt that he had grown as a young man and was now a different person, and only decided he was a problem when the details of that story became public knowledge. It was only then that a team that has long been an embarrassment for the league decided that this was one more embarrassment they simply could not take, so they instead stabbed the young man in the back.

As you would expect those closest to the young man have now come out in his defense, although I suspect that their efforts to redeem him in the eyes of the public or in the eyes of the hockey world will fall completely flat. Miller's sister McKenzie Miller published a message on social media claiming that only one side of this story had been portrayed. 

McKenzie is herself very young and she is obviously a very biased party in this whole situation so I would caution that you take her words here with that context in mind. I also do have to note that her brother was convicted in juvenile court of the accusations levied against him, so I don't really know what other side there could be to this story. 

The saddest part is that this latest blunder from the Coyotes organization has potentially denied both Miller and the hockey world a tremendous opportunity. When this story first broke last weekend I suggested that the Coyotes could perhaps even work towards making Miller an ambassador against bullying, one who truly shows remorse for his actions, and perhaps another team would have done so had the Coyotes allowed him to fall lower down in the draft. The fact that this appears to have been a racially motivated incident could have even worked with the NHL's push towards diversity initiates like the Hockey Diversity Alliance and perhaps could have even given Isaiah Meyer-Crothers a chance to share his story and help others as well.

Opinion on this front has been torn because Miller has been portrayed by his side as a remorseful kid who had attended counseling, cultural diversity classes and had even volunteered to work with other disabled children on his path to redemption. However a scathing letter from Joni Meyer-Crothers, the victim's mother, claims that Miller's behavior continued even up until recently and caused long-term damage to her son. The most damning detail from her letter however was a quote from the magistrate who presided over Miller's case as a juvenile:

"Mitchell, I don’t think you are remorseful for what you did more than you are upset for the negative attention you are getting," said the magistrate as per the letter.

I think the one thing both sides of the debate can agree on here is that this situation has been terribly mismanaged by the Coyotes. If you believe the player is reformed, defend him and stand by your pick. If you didn't believe he showed remorse then you should never have drafted him to begin with.