Sports superstars Majoring in "Stupidity"

[JD Spydo]

Well for those of you who have been keeping up with my NFL thread or those of you who are NFL fans of your own favorite team you surely are aware of this latest travesty concerning our Kansas City, Chiefs ex-running back Kareem Hunt. The news of him brutalizing a 19 year old woman and the newest revelation of him severely beating up a guy who was partying at Kansas City's famous "Power & Light" district ( a major watering hole and party hangout) is just completely outrageous and inexcusable. My question isn't really only about Kareem Hunt per se but it's also about all these Professional and some college athletes who have talent beyond belief but they seem to be nothing more than animals in their off-field, private life.

The list is huge over the years with some recent revelations like Ray Rice, Rae Carruth, Michael Vick ( that one really ticked me off :mad: ), Joe Phillips and one guy from the Chiefs about 5 years ago that murdered his girlfriend and later that same day committed suicide right in front the Chief's front office staff ( with cameras running no less) and he was only 24 years old>> just to name a few but the overall list just keeps getting bigger. My question is this?>>> Why are these guys that are blessed with awesome, GOD given talent and are respected and held up high in society becoming nothing but brutes, rapists, illegal gamblers, murderers and thugs What is with this epidemic of sports stars ( or even celebrities for that matter) that literally have millions of dollars coming their way but in spite of that some of them end up being nothing but thugs and criminals :confused: ?

I think if I had a job that was paying me 7 to 8 digits a year I could find a way to behave myself. The radio stations here in KC are like a buzz saw with this latest Kareem Hunt fiasco. And there are now two additional incidents he was also apparently involved in that have now come out about Mr. Hunt. Is mass insanity taking over our society or has it always been this bad but because of the internet we just know more and catch more of these guys? But wouldn't you think that the incentive of millions of dollars and a rewarding life you could have after a career would make you want to be a better person? Or is our culture just becoming more depraved ?

[James Y]

There are many super-talented people in many fields who are capable of very bad behavior. Being highly talented and having loads of money doesn't change who you are if you have sociopathic tendencies. With talented athletes in particular, they are used to all kinds of people kissing their rear ends; fans, coaches, agents, team owners, etc. A great many of these athletes suck academically and are given a pass because of their athletic talent, and the recognition they can give to their universities. They feel entitled, and nobody has given them a reason not to be.

Jim

[JD Spydo]

There are many super-talented people in many fields who are capable of very bad behavior. Being highly talented and having loads of money doesn't change who you are if you have sociopathic tendencies. With talented athletes in particular, they are used to all kinds of people kissing their rear ends; fans, coaches, agents, team owners, etc. A great many of these athletes suck academically and are given a pass because of their athletic talent, and the recognition they can give to their universities. They feel entitled, and nobody has given them a reason not to be.

Jim

That's an excellent assessment of the subject of Sports superstars gone bad. And I do agree with most of it. I'll go one further than that>> because of their talent and notoriety I really believe a lot of these thugs with GOD-Given talent truly think that they are bulletproof from the consequences of "man's law". And to a degree they get away with about 10 times the crap we normal citizens could pull off even with good lawyers. Many of them have so much money that it has put them in an artificial paradigm thus given them a very false sense of security.

Being a sports fan for several years and growing up a very sports oriented town ( Kansas City, MO) you tend to want to cut your sports heroes much more slack than you would most members of society. What sports superstars and politicians get away with in this nation is just absolutely despicable :mad: .

I heard one guy on one of the sports radio talk shows today say something to this effect>> "You can take the boy out of the ghetto but you can't always take the ghetto out of the boy" How true There are so many of them now and their offenses truly seem to be getting much worse. Or as I said earlier because of this present "internet age" it's probably just easier to catch them and it's much harder to sweep this crap under the rug like they used to at one time. And it's sad in many ways because several of the KC Chiefs and KC Royals have done great things for the community>> the good ones really do stand out and that's probably the only reason I haven't yet boycotted them.

[murphjd25]

And Browner just got 8 years today for attempted murder. When you are in this big of a spotlight you need to be held to a higher standard.

[JD Spydo]

And Browner just got 8 years today for attempted murder. When you are in this big of a spotlight you need to be held to a higher standard.

Yeah I saw that earlier>> and these few guys that get caught just makes me wonder how many of these guys do horrible reprehensible atrocities and are able to pay under the table and literally get away with rape, murder and in this case attempted murder. In the past 5 years there have been allegations of pedophilia, sex slave kidnapping and all kinds of stealing, drug dealing and other sick deplorable behaviors.

Browner reminds me of Rae Carruth from back in the late 90s. He had a girlfriend who got pregnant and she wouldn't get an abortion so he ended up killing her just to avoid child support :mad: I think he got life with no possibility of parole. He was a very talented football player with a bright future that did things that Charles Manson was not guilty of. And it just goes on and on.

I personally think these pro football players should be subject to the same protocol as pro boxers. And they should have to pay a horrible price if they hurt or kill a normal person. Their physical bodies should be rated as potentially lethal weapons IMO. But again because of their athletic status they don't seem to be subject to the same laws or code of behavior we normal citizens have to follow. They better not ever pick me to be on a jury for any of these jerks doing these atrocious things to women and children. I would recommend the maximum penalty with no parole. They need to really drop the hammer down on many of these jerks IMO. :mad:

[James Y]

I agree with a lot of that, JD Spydo. The weird thing about pro athletes (and politicians, etc.) who commit such heinous acts getting so much slack is that people in general complain how celebrities get preferential treatment over normal citizens in the eyes of the law. Yet many of those very same people then excuse the misbehavior of their team's star athlete(s), or of their favored politicians.

To show it from a political side, in San Diego, Rep. Duncan Hunter and his wife were indicted on fraud and campaign finance charges, will be going to trial, and even threw his wife under the bus by blaming her. And yet he just won his reelection. When asked in interviews, some of his supporters said they voted for him because "Our family has always voted for Duncan and his father." Or, "I know he did something wrong, but it's not so bad. I like him." Or, "I don't believe the allegations, and besides, I gotta vote for my party."

So-called 'normal folks' play a substantial role in the preferential treatment of star athletes and crooked politicians.

Jim

[The Deacon]

Football is a violent physical contact sport, not an intellectual exercise. Colleges don't recruit high school players for their SAT scores or their participation in science club, debating club, or band. They seek out brutes, some already taking steroids. Professional teams do the same when recruiting college players. Between the steroids and the opioids they take it's a wonder more do not go completely off the rails.

[JD Spydo]

I agree with a lot of that, JD Spydo. The weird thing about pro athletes (and politicians, etc.) who commit such heinous acts getting so much Or, "I know he did something wrong, but it's not so bad. I like him." Or, "I don't believe the allegations, and besides, I gotta vote for my party."

So-called 'normal folks' play a substantial role in the preferential treatment of star athletes and crooked politicians.

As a guy from California I'm sure the memory of O.J. Simpson ( Pimpson) is still fresh in your mind. At the time all that happened I had a very good friend of mine the day the Jury deliberated he predicted that O.J. was going to be set free and I remember I got up and said "No Way"!!! But 14 hours later he was absolutely right. ON top of that the way the good people from California have forgiven the Brown family ( Jerry, Pat, Kathleen ect) for all of their ill-fated decisions. I've even wondered if the Browns didn't have something to do with O.J. Pimpson being set free. And I don't believe that Nicole and her friend Goldman were the only ones that piece of trash murdered.

But the Nevada authorities sure didn't let Mr. Pimpson get away with anything. I also bet that if O. J. had not been a football hero they would have thrown away the key on that creep.

[MacLaren]

All true gentleman. But their bad behavior pales in comparison to that of some of our "great politicians"
Like Deacon said, they are rough mean brutes. ****, they pretty much came by it honestly. But, not only politicians in this country, but our captains of industry far outweigh anything our athletes do.
And they are the ones that should know better. At least the athletes get punished to some degree.

[JD Spydo]

Football is a violent physical contact sport, not an intellectual exercise. Colleges don't recruit high school players for their SAT scores or their participation in science club, debating club, or band. They seek out brutes, some already taking steroids. Professional teams do the same when recruiting college players. Between the steroids and the opioids they take it's a wonder more do not go completely off the rails.

That's a pretty good point about the "roids". I was just going down memory lane a couple of days ago looking at some of the old WWF ( now WWE) wrestlers from years gone by just to see what they were up to. I was truly astounded to see how many of them were already dead>> even the women that participated in that show many of them are already dead too as a result of drug use and all kinds of nefarious behavior. Not sure the steroids are as big of a problem now as they were then because I've heard that that NFL does extensive testing for that crap. But what was also interesting about those old WWF wrestlers is that at least over 80% of those guys from the 80s all the way to early 2000s era are all pretty much dead. That's a pretty high percentage especially figuring that most of those guys were even far younger than I am (64).

I saw a recent interview with Jake The Snake Roberts and if you all remember he was about as brutal and macho as a guy can get. He just looked pathetic the other day when I saw him on that interview. This poor guy looked like a retired truck driver that had at least 6 back operations :eek: He spoke of all the cocaine, oxycontin and a myriad of other drugs along with a steady diet of alcohol at a high rate>> after hearing his testimony it's hard to believe that the poor guy is even still alive>> he certainly must have the constitution of a bull rhino to have survived all of that. I also can't even believe that Hulk Hogan is still alive from all I've heard about him. I know we're basically on the subject of NFL football but those wrestlers were even worse than the football players because I seriously doubt if Vince McMahon and his organization did any drug testing at all.

Now there are two exceptions to the "brute"/barbarian mindset of these football players. One guy that the Chiefs had who also played for New England Mike Vrabel is a pretty sharp and borderline intellectual guy as well as former Chiefs player Tom Condon who is now one of the NFL's top notch player's agents. There are a few others that come out of football with some respect like Kurt Warner who is a devout Christian and a great human being. But I will admit I've met two of the former Chief's players and even worked for one of them once back in the 80s and they are not very kind people at all. I would like to think the NFL is cleaning up their act but I think that Kareem Hunt along with some others we've been discussing prove otherwise unfortunately.

But your overview is mostly accurate Deacon. Wow this is scary :eek: Me and my good pal the DEACON actually kind of agree on something :D :D

[JD Spydo]

All true gentleman. But their bad behavior pales in comparison to that of some of our "great politicians"
Like Deacon said, they are rough mean brutes. ****, they pretty much came by it honestly. But, not only politicians in this country, but our captains of industry far outweigh anything our athletes do.
And they are the ones that should know better. At least the athletes get punished to some degree.

That's also an excellent point Maclaren because over the years I did a couple of big jobs for some local, big time corporate executives and they are beyond belief. I doubt if Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez, Jeffrey Dahmer or even Kansas City's own Bob Bordella rate higher on the "evil meter" than most corporate executives ( or politicians) do. But I'm going to leave all of that for another thread at another time. Because these Sports icons are truly getting completely out of hand and getting worse as time goes on.

The incidents of many of these sports heroes here in Kansas City in the past 10 years are just getting more frequent. Even on the baseball side of the issue some of the former KC Royals proved to be some very horrible, evil people

[James Y]

Not to get too far off the subject of NFL (though this problem obviously spans the entire spectrum), but continuing on with the WWF/WWE wrestlers, there are a ton of wrestlers who have died young who started wrestling in the '90s and post-2000, many in their 30s. Besides steroids, I think nowadays addiction to painkillers is the main cause. Unlike many other athletes, WWE wrestlers have to perform injured all the time, or risk losing their spot in the rotation. Even though the floor of the ring has give, it's basically hard wood covered in canvas. Every time they take a 'bump' (wrestling for a hard impact), that's a lot of impact on the body, even for a 'simple', basic body slam. My sister-in-law's younger female cousin used to be a wrestler in TNA/Impact Wrestling many years ago, as well as several independent circuits. In TNA, she went by the stage name Roxxi Laveaux, or simply 'Roxxi'. I believe she retired several years ago to be a personal trainer(?), and fortunately seems to have turned out fine.

There are also many MMA fighters who have had behavioral problems.

IMO, the absolutely most evil people on this planet are not the physically brutish athletes, but men (and women) who wear business suits, have obscene amounts of money, and in all likelihood rarely if ever say cuss words or racial epithets (in polite company, anyway); who are superficially charming and shake your hand warmly with a smile, but with the stroke of a pen determine and destroy the livelihoods (or the lives) of hundreds or thousands of people at a time, without a second thought. And as another has already mentioned, these people will likely never face any consequences, at least in this lifetime.

As far as OJ goes, yes, I KNEW he would be acquitted, exactly because he was OJ. And also because the jurors were afraid that convicting him would have resulted in another Rodney King-style riot in LA.

Jim

[JD Spydo]

Not to get too far off the subject of NFL (though this problem obviously spans the entire spectrum), but continuing on with the WWF/WWE wrestlers, there are a ton of wrestlers who have died young who started wrestling in the '90s and post-2000, many in their 30s. Besides steroids, I think nowadays addiction to painkillers is the main cause.

IMO, the absolutely most evil people on this planet are not the physically brutish athletes, but men (and women) who wear business suits, have obscene amounts of money, and in all likelihood rarely if ever say cuss words or racial epithets (in polite company, anyway)

As far as OJ goes, yes, I KNEW he would be acquitted, exactly because he was OJ. And also because the jurors were afraid that convicting him would have resulted in another Rodney King-style riot in LA.

Those are some very interesting and astute observations James. I had never even considered an O.J.guilty verdict causing another Rodney King type riot because to me that was kind of different in many ways. My take on that one boils down to two possibilities. As famous as O.J. was at the time I think some of the jurors may have feared retaliation first off. Not to mention O.J.'s connections to a very high up Lodge he belonged to at the time. Also with all the money that changed hands it would be interesting to know if many of those jurors turned out financially well healed after the dust had settled. There was some very serious money involved in that trial and it's like Marcia Clarke literally took a dive on that one too. But on the other hand I'm not going to say that your theory is wrong either because California has a very strange set of dynamics and they are nothing like the rest of the USA from what I've observed. Because when he got in trouble in Nevada it was truly a completely different legal environment than the one he faced in CA.
Corporate Executives are probably parallel to the villians in the New Testament that Jesus referred to as the Pharisees. I think in this case the names have changed but for all intent and purposes they are the modern day Pharisees. In other words>> nothing new under the sun But I do totally agree with their level of pure evil>> they are who I call "The Wolves Of Wall Street"
Overall in all my 64 years on the planet I don't ever remember a time as cold and heartless as the era we are all currently living in. The stress of living in 2018 is a completely different set of challenges that what I grew up in back in the 60s and 70s. Hatred and greed are truly at an all time high as well as evil in it's most malevolent degree. I wish I wasn't right but I know I am.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Football is a violent physical contact sport, not an intellectual exercise. Colleges don't recruit high school players for their SAT scores or their participation in science club, debating club, or band. They seek out brutes, some already taking steroids. Professional teams do the same when recruiting college players. Between the steroids and the opioids they take it's a wonder more do not go completely off the rails.

Why are humans so into competitive spectator sports around the world, be it soccer or American football, basketball, or boxing?

[JD Spydo]

Football is a violent physical contact sport, not an intellectual exercise. Colleges don't recruit high school players for their SAT scores or their participation in science club, debating club, or band. They seek out brutes, some already taking steroids. Professional teams do the same when recruiting college players. Between the steroids and the opioids they take it's a wonder more do not go completely off the rails.

Why are humans so into competitive spectator sports around the world, be it soccer or American football, basketball, or boxing?

Competitive sports are just part of human culture and have been for as long as recorded history. I agree that there does seem to be some barbaric aspects to many sports we watch>> such as tackle football, boxing, ice hockey, full contact karate, kick boxing and I guess you could add Olympic wrestling ( not WWE) to that mix just to name a few. In some ways pro-football is kind of like a simulated war game. But in spite of that there is a big entertainment aspect to it. And that is the bottom line sports ( especially pro sports) are entertainment.

Back years ago when I was working on Ross Perot's Presidential campaign I had a very good friend I was working with that put it in a nutshell. He said at that time when we were trying to make the American people aware of some of the horrible truths that were taking place in the political arena even as far back as that time there was only a minor token uprising. But he went on to say something I won't forget as long as I will be allowed to draw breath on this planet>> He said that if you slowly take a person's rights away and do it methodically one increment at a time you can pull it off without much resistance >> but if they ever attempted to do away with Monday Night Football or any other professional sports for that matter you would have a violent and bloody revolution that would soon follow. It would probably make the US Civil War of the 1800s look pale by comparison. How true that was. Which shows you what is most precious to our current society>> yes!! entertainment is the new god or golden calf of the American society and they will fight to the death to keep it.

[JD Spydo]

I know this old thread should have been left in the "Thread Graveyard" but there is so much that has transpired in the past few months and one incident in particular has raised some serious questions.

The recent Myles Garrett incident is now well known even among non sports people. But this one really makes me wonder what the heck is wrong with many of these pro-athletes :confused: . When Myles Garrett literally attacked and criminally assaulted the opposing team's QB when the game was over for all intent and purposes. The game was over and his team had won for crying out loud :rolleyes: . As some of the dust has settled on this incident the fallout just keeps getting bigger for Mr. Myles Garrett and professional sports in general.

He is probably going to lose close to two whole years of his exorbitant, lofty salary for no really solid reason at all. The Brown's team already had the game secured for crying out loud. You would think that someone making 7 digits a year in wages would not want to risk the goose that laid several golden eggs. But no he even screwed all of that up.

This all goes even beyond just Myles Garrett and him acting like a mentally disturbed juvenile. To me it's an indicator that there is something horribly wrong with our entire society in general. It seems as though "sanity", decency and common sense are no longer present in our society. But so many of these sports superstars seem to think that laws and rules of society don't apply to them.

About a year ago I thought Kareen Hunt had got about as bad as a person could get. But now Myles Garrett has far surpassed that. I'm now wondering what's next?

[Doc Dan]

That kind of behavior is exactly why The rules are so strict and football and also why there are laws against that sort of thing. This kind of behavior amongst these people is not all that new. Look at Aaron Hernandez who killed rather murdered multiple people while playing for the patriots. Look at O.J. Simpson

[The Deacon]

That kind of behavior is exactly why The rules are so strict and football and also why there are laws against that sort of thing. This kind of behavior amongst these people is not all that new. Look at Aaron Hernandez who killed rather murdered multiple people while playing for the patriots. Look at O.J. Simpson

The rules may be strict, but at every level from high school, to college, to pro defensive players are encouraged to not only "stop the play", but to take the opposing team's player out of the game. If that doesn't tell you there's something radically wrong with our priorities, then how about the fact that the highest paid state government employee in several states is the coach of its state university football team.

[Doc Dan]

That kind of behavior is exactly why The rules are so strict and football and also why there are laws against that sort of thing. This kind of behavior amongst these people is not all that new. Look at Aaron Hernandez who killed rather murdered multiple people while playing for the patriots. Look at O.J. Simpson

The rules may be strict, but at every level from high school, to college, to pro defensive players are encouraged to not only "stop the play", but to take the opposing team's player out of the game. If that doesn't tell you there's something radically wrong with our priorities, then how about the fact that the highest paid state government employee in several states is the coach of its state university football team.

Yes take them out has been carried too far for too many years. They even turn some players into bullies from a very young age.

[Doc Dan]

And what about that teenage football player that brutally raped that girl and was caught by two other boys and wrestled to the ground and held until the police came and then he was let go by the judge because it would ruin his football career.