Sport Heroes woes

Hello Blog readers, today I want to talk about something I thought about as I watched “Mike and Mike” this morning on ESPN. As usual, Dwayne Wade made a stupid comment. (When you get paid to train ten hours a day and to play for two hours to shoot a ball in a hoop you lose some IQ points, apparently.) And I got to thinking about the new "Big 3" in Miami and you know what I realized?! A sports superstar’s life kind of…sucks.


You are attacked for everything; LeBron will never be able to peacefully walk in his hometown again. He probably won’t be able to go to any of the top cities that had bids in for him. But, I don’t pity him; I still feel he did it unprofessionally.

Yet I got to thinking and looked into Sports "heroes" deeper and I realized we have an obsession in this industry for the contracts. We ALL look up and care about how much these players are making a year, making a game, making an inning. How long is the commitment? How much upfront? Now it’s no secret these guys make tons more than they should. Breaking a hundred million in just a sports contract alone isn’t unprecedented anymore. In fact we say "eh coulda got someone else but OK.” Remember when A-rod got his contract to the Yankees? "Oh my goodness that’s more than my entire family will make in my life! All for hitting a baseball and stomaching Madonna?!"

These people make a lot of money but I want to bring up a statistic that shocked me.

Did you know 7 out of 10 professional athletes go bankrupt within 10 years after retiring? Hundreds of Millions in endorsements and in contracts, all too just go bankrupt? Anyone reading this will say "I could live off that for the rest of my life and then some".

I probably could too HOWEVER look at how they are paid.

Some are paid at the end of the year in bulk unlike us where we get a small amount of pay every two weeks. Imagine if ten million dollars appeared in your bank account right now? Would you spend all ten? Most would, myself included, and without even realizing it. We can easily mismanage our money if we have a surplus of it or even just make a ton at once. If it appears so fast it may seem like money will come in forever.

And unlike an Author or a Movie Star, that’s not true. After these guys snap a leg or retire from age there’s nothing. They can’t even get a job at ESPN unless you’re lucky. Those commercials and endorsements? Gone! A movie star can get roles often and can work a lot longer people, work into their eighties. A football player will be lucky with ten good years. The common belief that cash cows are meat and no one cares for them can never be any truer than in sports. And if you are a "hero" you may never have to pick up the tab at a bar again but, if you're going to be broke in ten years after retirement, chances are you won’t even be recognized from that has-been look.

And if it couldn't be worse after you leave the game you played passionately for your entire life, you can’t go to camp, you can’t play. If the biggest hobby or whatever job you have that you love to do, and you did it for years of preparation, and are suddenly kicked out I don’t know can you say DEPRESSION? Farve is a unfortunate example of this I don’t think life matters outside football for that man and just because of this the entire country hates him unless you’re in Minnesota.

Not even for Minnesota, there still mad about that interception and, that brings up my next point for this unforgiving society we live in. If you make one stupid comment like Wade made earlier you’re tarnished FOREVER. No matter what you do, people won’t forget. Take Michael Jordan, anytime you get in a conversation about him some moron has to go off and say "HAHA remember when he tried to go into baseball, what a tool!" Unfortunately this goes to all walks of life Sports, Politics, Movies you name it we never forgive anyone for anything. MJ has been dead for a year and if you go to one of his music videos on the internet that has comments you'll still hear "PEDOPHILE" even to a dead man.

Our society is just cold hearted wolves who bite your ankles at the one second you slip.

So, the next time you think of “Wow, I wish I was a sports hero”. Or the next time you force your kid to go beyond the high school jock by not showing him the outside world other than a couple of weight sets, just remember what you’re signing up for?

Jesse 'crazed one' Jackson

Jesse Jackson…just when you think he’s vanished for good he comes back down to our planet to say something stupid. This time he’s going on about how the Cavilers owner is a racist. Why is every comment that has to do with a white man to a black man have to be racist to this guy? Look, if this guy thinks saying dumb comments (I HIGHLY doubt race has anything to do with Cleveland’s anger. That the only man who had a shot at winning a championship just left, let alone it was his hometown, and he did it in the most EMBARASSING fashion possible) has to do with racism just because there multi racial than everyone should be in jail I suppose. It happens every day. Even as you look at the quotes from the Cav's owner I only see some comments made out of the stress of the moment but, I don’t see any racism at all.


A one hour special to go 20 minutes in just to tell you, “Hey, I love you guys, but I wanna win a title. Could he have had a press conference and held up that Heat jersey next to Pat Riley like EVERY SENSIBLE PLAYER DOES?! No! So don’t go off saying race has anything to do with it. The funny part about this is that Mel Gibson tells his girlfriend to get raped by a pack of (Well you fill in the blanks) and where’s Jesse?!

NO WHERE

He went back up in his little spaceship back to his home planet where in the most unsuspecting moment he will be zapped back down to Earth to say yet another dumb comment.

You know if every time someone from a different race in the business world said ANYTHING negative about someone of another race we should all be segregated. Let the Chinese only do business with the Chinese, black only with black, white with white, and Mexicans with only Mexicans. Which, if he’s so for the cause, is the exact opposite of what he preaches to want.