BY KEVIN FRIEDENBERG

In print | Published March 1, 2007

What would you do with your money if you were a pro athlete? Would you donate it to charity? Would you build a hospital for sick children in your impoverished hometown neighborhood? Or would you spend $81,000 “making it rain” on 40 strippers in a Las Vegas strip club during the NBA All-Star Weekend? Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones did just that.

According to the police report, Jones became infuriated when one of the dancers began to pick up the money “without his permission,” so he bashed her face off the stage using her hair. But it doesn’t end there; apparently one of Jones’ entourage came back with a gun after an altercation with a bouncer and opened fire into the nightclub, injuring three including one paralyzed. This is Jones’ fourth incident in three years involving a nightclub. This makes me wonder, why do professional athletes, who are among the few lucky enough to live the high life and who do so in the public eye, feel the need to commit such offensive and useless acts?

Consider this: since the first day of 2006, the Cincinnati Bengals had nine players arrested; that number doesn’t even include citations. Wide receiver Chris Henry alone has been arrested multiple times, including one time for an aggravated assault with a firearm, committed while he was wearing his team-issued uniform (both Henry and Jones attended West Virginia University). It seems to me that young athletes may not be able to handle the sudden influx of limelight and cash that accompanies being a first round draft choice.

I think that one of the saddest sports stories that I have ever heard is what has happened to the running back Maurice Clarett. After an excellent freshman year at Ohio State, Clarett tried to challenge the NFL rule of waiting three years after graduating high school to turn pro, which as you may remember resulted in his dismissal from Ohio State and also being prohibited from the draft.

After a failed attempt to turn pro, Clarett was arrested in relation to two armed robberies. From here on, everything went downhill. The climax of this story is when Clarett was arrested in late 2006 after a car chase with police revealed that Clarett had a myriad of weapons in his car (a hatchet, AK-47 and three handguns) and a bulletproof vest. The nail in the coffin was the fact that Clarett was in the vicinity of the house of one of the prime witnesses against him for his armed robbery trail.

Even though these are not all of the examples of young athletes getting into trouble, we must remind ourselves that there is good in the world. For example, NBA star Dwyane Wade has recently announced that he is pairing with Staples to fund the improvement of several parks in central Florida for kids. Atlanta Falcons running back Warrick Dunn is the founder of two charities including the Warrick Dunn foundation, which gives money to struggling single mothers so that they can buy homes. Examples like these help remind me that some athletes do care about things more than money and being flashy.

When I read about athletes getting arrested, I often shake my head in wonder how a person with such promising and rare talent can squander such gifts. For every athlete arrested in America I can only imagine that there are thousands and thousands of citizens who if given the same opportunity would not react in such an inappropriate fashion.

Maybe this penchant for trouble is representative of our society and how much pressure and attention we put on pro sports. Let’s not forget that, after all, sports are just a game. If all athletes could just realize how blessed they are to be in the situation that they are, then maybe the troublemakers could clean up their act. If someone with so much influence over the youth of America is so inclined to act poorly, then maybe we should not hold him in such a high position of power after all.

Kevin is a first-year. You can reach him at kfriede1@swarthmore.edu.

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