In September, an eleven-year-old boy wearing a Saquon Barkley New York Giants jersey approached Dallas Cowboys star DeMarcus Lawrence after the game asking for an autograph. Lawrence, without breaking stride, walked right past Kamil Bautista, calling back, “Get the right jersey, son!”
In the game at which Lawrence snubbed Kamil, the Cowboys had drubbed the Giants, 35-18.
Two months later, Barkley flew Kamil and his family from Texas to New York for the Giants-Jets game on November 10. As TMZ reports, “The Bautistas got the VIP treatment — sideline passes, autographs and all the hook-ups — but the best moment was clearly Kamil’s first time hanging with Barkley.” Kamil started crying when he met Barkley, who also signed items and took pictures with the boy. And this was happening during a terrible season for the Giants, who are currently 2-10. Barkley, one of the standout running backs in the league, is currently 24th in the NFL in rushing, with 544 yards on 1367 rushing attempts, but that didn’t get in his way of treating Kamil and his family to a special moment.
After the initial incident, Lawrence issued a non-apology on Twitter, writing, “It’s crazy how you fans want to attack me for not signing for a kid. It’s more than one kid that come to the game with Cowboys jerseys and never get to meet any player. So if I’m honest with my own kids I will never treat your kid better than mine so suck it up. #SorryNotSorry.”
It’s crazy how you fans want to attack me for not signing for a kid. It’s more than one kid that come to the game with Cowboys jerseys and never get to meet any player. So if I’m honest with my own kids I will never treat your kid better than mine so suck it up. #SorryNotSorry https://t.co/FwI7SI8rYS
— DeMarcus Lawrence (@TankLawrence) September 10, 2019
Kamil’s father Jorge noted that several other Cowboys snubbed his son trying for an autograph but he was miffed at the way Lawrence reacted to Kamil. He said, “You’ve got my son who has the guts to approach you with his New York Giants fan, and you disrespect him like that? I was like, man, I don’t think that was right.”
Jorge made a video in which he explained his motivation for posting the video of the initial incident:
The reason that we posted was not to be famous, to get money; to get somebody to call us. No. the reason that we posted was first of all, to show our kids that you gotta be humble with every single person in this world, and second of all, to show it to people out there that maybe didn’t go to the stadium or for some reason couldn’t make it, that they see these actions of these players. And I’m hoping that maybe the organizations, the NFL or the owners or the boss sit down with them. You know, I’ve got employees. If my employees say something wrong to a customer, I’d be like, ‘Hey, that’s not right. You gotta be humble. You gotta be polite to people … At the end of the day, look, no hard feelings. He’s a human being. He can apologize; he was in a bad mood … Hopefully, with this, the next time an NFL player is gonna act like that maybe he’ll think it twice. “Hey, you know what, there could be cameras on me.” Don’t do that to kids.