WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND: My Thoughts On O.J. Simpson's Fate

On October 3, 1995, a jury in Los Angeles found Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of murdering his wife and her waiter friend, setting off a huge amount of rage and frustration among some people (mostly white) and a huge amount of happiness and celebration among others (mostly black).

Exactly thirteen years later, a jury in Las Vegas convicted this man of armed robbery, of trying to retrieve some memorabilia from an old friend at gunpoint. With his sentencing scheduled for December 6th, he faces life in prison.

There's a famous old saying that came to mind when I first heard the news:

"What goes around, comes around"

I'm sure I am echoing the sentiments of the vast majority of the populace by stating that, particularly whites.

But it's not my intention to put a racial spin on this latest episode of OJ's, even though the results of his first trial polarized this country among those lines in a way that hasn't been seen since the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's and 60's.

Believe it or not, there were—and are—some African Americans who felt that the former USC Trojan and Buffalo Bill did kill Nicole and that Ron Goldman guy that night in Brentwood.

And you can count my mother and I among those people. The DNA showings were clear, as was all the signs and evidence.

When O.J. walked out of that courtroom back in '95, that acquittal gave him, in my view, an infinite overdose of something that I felt he had quite a bit of all along—arrogance. Arrogance stemming from his mind-set that with enough money and the right lawyers, he could get away with anything.

That notion definitely came crashing down a week ago, with another one rearing its head big-time:

Whatever you give out, you get back.

It took 13 years, but O.J. will now pay for not only this latest crime in Vegas, but somehow for those murders as well. It's karma; in a sense, it's like God—or fate—or both —bided their time for over a decade, then BOOM—made O.J. pay for his sins.

Simply put, it was arrogance that caused this ultimate downfall. O.J. Simpson's arrogance has brought him to his own end.

In fact, this situation parallels with Icarus', from Greek mythology.

I'm sure everyone remembers that story, about how Icarus was warned not to fly too high with the wings his father made him, but did it anyway because he got a bit too cocky. We all know the rest: The kid flew too close to the sun, the wax in his wings melted, and SPLAT! Down he went.

Well, O.J. is that Icarus—by trying to get away with robbery, he was flying too close the sun. That guilty verdict was his splat.

Now this Heisman Trophy winner and NFL Hall of Famer is going to do what so many people felt he should've been doing for the past decade—do time in a prison cell. Possibly for life. 

And it was his arrogance and hubris that brought him to this.

What goes around, comes around indeed.