Posted by Rich DeLeo
on 12/3/2003, 11:18 am
Board Administrator
It used to be that we could escape into the world of sports to get away from the everyday news of drugs and crime, disease, famine and so on. Now, in todays depraved society, we cannot even go into the sports world without hearing about drugs and crime, disease, not so much famine with most athletes making millions. It seems that everyday we are hit with yet another athlete getting arrested for drugs, beating his wife or girlfriend or both. Players fathering numerous illegitimate children to numerous women, getting nailed for D.U.I. You get the idea! Why can't these guys just be athletes and do their jobs without all of these distractions? Because the money they are being paid is the cause of all the distractions. How has the sports landscape changed? Just hearing Lawrence Taylor speak of his insane way of life during his time in the NFL speaks volumes about the way the modern day athlete lives, and the rotten example these guys are setting for younger athletes. Younger kids should not look to these guys for any leadership, because what they will find is a life full of drugs, loose women, and always living on the edge, hoping that their celebrity status as a pro athlete will keep them out of harms way. Well, it doesn't! If I started a list of athletes involved with drugs and or crime, I would be writing into the new year. Basketball and Baseball players seem to have a penchant for bringing kids into this world not from their own home situation. Travel and life on the road provides way too much temptation, and we always see how weak these guys are. The NFL has publicly denounced the ESPN series "Playmakers" as a poor showing of the life of pro football players. Truth be told, this series probably hits too close to home for many in the NFL, from the clubhouse boys right up to the owners box. The use of "juice" on Playmakers has been a common practice for decades. Violence both on and off the field was accurately portrayed. The struggle for survival was very real, with the rookie pushing the veteran out of a job, and eventually out of the league. This portrayal
hopefully opened a lot of eyes as to how pro football players live their lives, and how dangerous it can be in certain situations. Athletes today have made a mockery of their games. Could you imagine Roberto Clemente using steriods or supplements? I'll bet Johnny Unitas never took a shot of "juice" to get him through the game! In the early days of sports, alcohol probably was the strongest vice athletes had. Today, killer drugs are the vice of choice for so many. It's nothing anymore to hear of an athlete using cocaine or crack or heroin, and usually getting a second chance. All of this has crept into the once sacred world of sports and has destroyed the credibility of the games over the years. Athletes of days gone by lasted longer because they didn't use drugs that could and would eventually kill them. They used hard work to get into condition, not steroids to bulk up to enhance their performance. Those who made the game and are still with us, have to be sick at all of the stories of drug use, and cheating by athletes to get ahead. Sports used to be a safe haven from all of this nonsense, but not any more. I don't feel sorry for a Lawrence Taylor, Pete Rose (the gambler), Steve Howe, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and so on. What these people have done is take away the last bastian of a clean culture and turned it into a degrading playground where junkies get a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth chance. I haven't even mentioned the Kobe Bryant situation, which when that finally goes to trial, will pull the sports world down even further, and give it yet another black eye! Last year, former Packer Mark Chmura was on trial for raping his babysitter, and got away with it! Salaries have spiraled out of control, players behavior on and off the field has never been worse. Football players have to dance every damn time they make a tackle, or score a touchdown, and coaches put up with it! Because the bottom line is to win, and if they win, then they can dance and look like fools. But the only fools are us, the ones who fork over our hard earned money to these teams, so we can watch an inferior product, and athletes march all the way to the bank, while looking at us through the television cameras and proclaiming "give me your money sucka". Athletes live on the edge, taking chances that they well know will hurt them, yet they take them anyway. Then when it comes time to pay the piper, they go on television, shed some tears, ask forgiveness, and for another chance. And we give it to them!! The Oxygen channel has a program called "Girls Behaving Badly", which will eventually go off the air someday. But if they turned that into "Athletes Behaving Badly", that would run forever, simply because there would be a never ending supply of athletes getting into trouble, and giving their coaches and owners more gray hair. So I guess, we will have to find another safe haven from drugs and crime, disease and famine. Problem is, is that we have run out of options.
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