The Jonathan Martin-Richie Incognito situation down in Miami has been one of the most interesting sports stories to break in the last handful of years. It started, we thought, as a case of bullying. Then, it was about the hazing of young players in a team setting. Then, it was about racism.

It is all those things, to varying degrees, though the severity and validity of each is being roundly debated.

What fascinates me most is the racial element to this. Incognito’s frequent use of the "N" word in addressing Martin (and perhaps others) is troubling, not just to me, but to other black athletes. (Shannon Sharpe’s soliloquy this past Sunday is a must-watch).

This part of the story blew my mind.

I’ve been in professional clubhouses and locker rooms for a decade. I’m not a beat writer – I’m not there every day, or on the road – but I’ve been around enough to know when guys don’t like each other, when guys give each other a hard time, or when they genuinely get along.

I’ve been in college and high school locker rooms, too, where you might think the athletes – the kids – weren't as schooled in dealing with the media, or in talking to one another in front of reporters (this includes pregame in the stands, or postgame in the hallways).

Nearly every team I’ve ever been around for any length of time has been diverse in color, ethnicity and language. Some have had actual blood relatives on the team.

Never – not once – have I heard that word uttered.

Even though I've heard it in the stands between groups of friends, in the hallways, on the street, at the gym, I've never heard it in the locker room.

That speaks to professionalism, even on the high school level, and in taking pride in who you are, what you do and where you are.

I can’t say for sure that any of the professional athletes I’ve covered over the years would react to being called that word by a teammate in immediate violence. But, knowing those men, they wouldn’t let a man like Incognito run unchecked. And they certainly would not bestow a white player the "honorary distinction" of using such a word.

This brings me back to the true heart of the matter regarding Incognito and Martin: comfort in the workplace.

Regardless of what you think about professional sports, that the players are paid too much, that society puts too much of an emphasis on it, it’s still a place of work.

It’s a job for these guys. Like some of us, some of them don’t like their job (gasp!) and would rather be doing something else.

But every person in every workplace deserves a built in respect and comfort level, and Martin was denied that.

This is why Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland, head coach (and former Green Bay Packers assistant) Joe Philbin and his assistants should be fired.

They created an environment that allowed Incognito (and others) to torment a co-worker to the point he just up and left, an environment where hate speech became part of the "brotherhood" in the locker room.

Say what you want about the individual players and how they treated each other. They’re just the employees. The hierarchy of management is there for a reason, and they failed miserably.

They failed on several levels, but mostly because one human was allowed to treat another as subhuman.

I've been around some dysfunctional individuals and some fractured locker rooms where guys legitimately disliked one another. That happens. Like in any workplace. But whatever they thought of one another as players, it never, to my knowledge, devolved into what was going on in Miami.

To me, that speaks more to the true brotherhood that these athletes had – not the one Incognito made up – that to be a team, to truly care for one another, you cannot use language that is built on hate.