Why am not feeling sorry for NBA and NFL athletes who are rushing to have their divorce settlements reduced because of the lockout? Could they possibly argue that after years of being paid extraordinary sums of money, they can't afford to make the payments they agreed upon to support their children? Now if these were school teachers being locked out, or factory workers who've lost jobs to out-sourcing, I could be more understanding. Should we feel sorry for Antonio Cromartie who has had nine children by eight different women? Does he belong in the knucklehead club, or what? I admit Cromartie is an extreme example, but do you know that the divorce rate among athletes is 80%? Furthermore, must I feel sad for these fellows who buy 10,000 square foot homes now scurrying to their nearest banks to refinance their mortgages. I wonder if those folks who have been jobless for the last couple of years and lost their homes are sympathetic? Or how about the people who were hoodwinked by greedy brokers and mortgage bankers into buying homes that are today upside down in value? Are those poor folks wringing their hands over the predicament of the professional athletes? Our entire economy is upside down, and these spoiled children we call roll models are crying poor. Give me a break!
I was amazed to read that the NFL is just now considering testing their athletes for Human Growth Hormones. Check out the neck sizes of some of these behemoths. Hmm!
Today's sports contains an article about the Giants' players growing beards thus promoting a rash of sympathetic fans to grow beards too. It's called the Fear the Beard Syndrome. You want to know how it got started? Back in the 2007 NBA season, my son Matthew and his friend Dan started a website for Baron Davis, the Warriors' bearded point guard and called it Fear the Beard. It became an extremely popular site during an exciting season in which the Warriors, an 8th seeded team in the playoffs, knocked off the #1 seeded Dallas Mavericks. Is this where the Memphis Grizzlies got the idea to grow beards in this years' playoff? The Giants? If the beard craze continues, pretty soon all professional athletes will look like Presidents Ulysses S Grant or Rutherford B Hayes, not to mention fans who will also be wearing Fear the Beard T-shirts and caps. I understand an entire line of men's Fear the Beard clothing is being considered. If you don't believe that my son started this, Baron Davis still has his website, check it out, the first of its kind. My son and his friend, woe is me, failed to obtain a copyright on the logo.
Before there were Human Growth Hormones, there was Big Daddy Lipscomb.
Goodbye to Big Daddy by Randall Jarrell.
Big Daddy Lipscomb, who used to help them up
After he'd pulled them down, so that "the children
Won't think Big Daddy's mean": Big Daddy Lipscomb,
Who stood unmoved among the blockers, like the Rock
Of Gibraltar in a life insurance ad,
Until the ball carrier came, and Daddy got him;
Big Daddy Lipscomb, being carried down an aisle
Of women by Night Train Lane, John Henry Johnson,
And Lenny Moore; Big Daddy, his three ex-wives,
His fiancee, and the grandfather who raised him
Going to his grave in five big Cadillacs;
Big Daddy, who found football easy enough, life hard enough
In his yellow Cadillacs - to die of heroin;
Big Daddy, who was scared, he said: "I've been scared
Most of my life. You wouldn't think so to look at me.
It gets so bad I cry myself to sleep -" his size
Embarrassed him, so that he was helped my smaller men
And hurt by smaller men; Big Daddy Lipscomb
Has helped to his feet the last ball carrier, Death.
The big black man in the television set
Whom the viewers stared at - sometimes, almost were -
Is a blur now; when we get up to adjust the set,
It's not the set, but a NETWORK DIFFICULTY.
The world won't be the same without Big Daddy.
Or else it will be.
