Athletes in trouble with the law

[Dion]

The other day I got to thinking about Michael Vick and his run in with the law. Here we have a young man who has the world on a string. He has a dream job as a NFL quarterback, plus there's the endorsements and his contract. It made me wonder why a pro athlete would engage in such risky behaviour with the possibility of losing everything he worked so hard to get.

It's not just Vick that has this problem, it's countless other athletes. They're smart, they're intelligent, yet for some reason they fail to recognise the dangers of their actions.

My curiosity got the better of me so I decided to find out what the so called experts and journalists had to say about this.

The Public and the Media:

It appears we as fans and the media itself have created an image of athletes as being gods. And through this athletes supposedly feel a sense of entitlement. To a point where they fell indestructable.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072801369.html?hpid=topnews

Alan Goldberg, psychological consultant to many college and Olympic teams, blames an adoring public and the media, which he said help to create images of players as gods. Too often television, newspapers and magazines mythologize athletes, he said, giving an illusion that they have some kind of superior integrity when in reality they aren't much different than anyone else.

And when they fail us, watch out! We zone in on that athlete and crucify that person at every opportunity. Not just the media but the fans themselves. An event that in some cases would never make it past the local crime blotter if that person was just an ordinary Joe.

So the question I had to ask is why do fans and media do this. To understand this we need to understand why me make super heroes of others.

My search lead to me to a most interesting article written by Havard Law professor Jon Hanson titled:

"The psychopathology of athlete worship:"

http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2006/08/why-do-we-love-hating-maurice-clarett.html

To make illustrate his point he does a comparison of former Ohio State footbal player Maurice Clarett, who was arrested for robbery, and American cyclist Lance Armstrong.

We love loving Lance because his success confirms our faith in the power of perseverance. The message for us all is the American creed: We can overcome our situation, no matter how grim, if only we work hard and choose wisely.

This brings us back to the more tragic Clarett story. Why do we love hating Maurice? For the same reason -- just from a different angle. Clarett was at the cusp of fame. Had he simply chosen better, as one editorialist wrote, Clarett "would be signing autographs in some National Football League training camp right now. He'd be the face of a franchise. He'd be a millionaire. He'd be wearing Nike shoes and getting paid to do it. He'd be posing for magazine covers and billboards, instead of mug shots."

The message of Clarett's story is just the flip side of the same creed: If we work hard and make good choices we will succeed, but if we are lazy and make bad choices, we will fail.

Now we're left wondering why it is we the fan and the media love these messages. The author describes it as some what of an addiction.

Social science provides several reasons, but among the most important is our subconscious craving to believe that our world is just and that anyone can overcome circumstances. When our heroes are "good guys" who make "good choices" and our villains are "bad guys" who make "bad choices," that craving is satisfied.

Found another article that reinforces this sense of entitlement athletes seem to have. It also delves into the mind of an athlete in an attempt to understand how they think. It's written by Robert Lypsite and focuses on the work of psychiatric resident Michael Miletic

Outside the Norm: The Mind-Set of the Elite Athlete

http://www.uic.edu/classes/psych/psych270/outside.htm

The article begins with Miletic treating an NHL player who attempted suicide. While the article doesn't directly talk about athletes in trouble with the law, it does illustrate how the mind of an athlete works and the influences that help to shape it. More to the point, how it can cause an athlete to go astray.

If Miletic's ideas about athletes and early trauma ever lift from anecdote to data, it may help create a productive discussion of the ethics of sports psychologists and the responsibilities of teams and leagues.

Athletes' sense of "agency" -- their power to make changes by their own actions -- is a two-edged sword, Miletic says. Athletes have been conditioned to believe that if they do enough repetitions, shoot enough baskets, they can overcome anything, from poverty to injury. Yet a belief that serves them so well on the field can be translated, Miletic says, to a sense of entitlement in everyday life, a sense that they are above the law.

It is a feeling too often reinforced by how they are treated, as superior humans with extraordinary achievements. Rarely, until they get into serious trouble, do fans, the news media, coaches and management see them as fellow vulnerable humans with problems that need to be faced.

Miletic goes on further to talk about the cuture of socialization. He illustrates the negative effects of the pressures they are put under by parents and coaches alike.

"The upside of their drivenness is their orientation to their goal, their ability to focus," he said. "The downside is they are often emotionally constricted outside the white lines, with superficial marriages and friendships. The only place where real emotion can come out is on the playing field, where they can hug and kiss and cry. The only time they feel alive is when they are playing.

"There is a whole culture of the socialization of appearing invulnerable that's put into play, almost automatically and unconsciously by coaches and parents. For example, they've been shamed, humiliated as wimps, if they show pain."

The article finishes by illustrating that most healthy athletes can dissocoiate themselves from the game when it's over and are able to return to their normal lives. The ones that can't seem to do that are the ones that end up in trouble.


Get outta jail cards for every jock:

This entitlement they feel gives them this false sense of superiority where they actually feel they are above the law. A good example is Ty Law. His comments to a police officer had me shaking my head in disbelief.

http://www.sportsfanmagazine.com/sfm/articles.html?id=841

Ty Law had a problem with the police in April, and he handled it much better. After a short jog with police, Ty said to the cops; “don’t touch me, I’m a professional athlete.”

The arresting officer said that Ty decided he was above the law, and he’s not, and that’s why he was arrested.

Then we have the court systems who aren't doing much to disspell this. Jamal Lewis accepts a plea bargain charge and gets to serve his time when the season was over.

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that Jamal Lewis accepted a plea bargain that would make him serve a four to six month jail sentence instead of the career-ending 10-year sentence he would face if he was convicted of the drug conspiracy charge. Naturally, he wouldn’t have to serve his sentence until after the season.

Continued in next post..........

[Dion]

How many of us would get the same special treatment if the conditions were the same. Fat chance i'd say.

Then we have the comments to Ray Lewis from Jamal.

Jamal Lewis should get some advice from teammate Ray Lewis, the perennial star linebacker for the Ravens who got out of murder charges in 2000. Jamal said that Ray called him when news of the arrest broke and assured him that everything would work out fine. I’m not sure what he told him, but I would bet it was along the lines of “you’re a professional athlete, they can’t touch you.”

Then there's the arguement that they have the money to buy the best attorneys.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04284/393055.stm

If the O.J. Simpson case taught us anything about athletic celebrity, it was this: He who enters the courtroom with the most expensive lawyers wins. Jayson Williams reaffirmed that lesson after seemingly getting away with murder. Kobe Bryant's eight-carat crystallized it.

Juries unlikely to convict:

This article focuses on the actions of athletes during the game and why it's so difficult for prosecutors to get convictions.

http://www.courttv.com/archive/people/2000/0331/sports_ctv.html

The biggest problem facing a prosecutor is that he/she has to prove there was criminal intent.

"In sports it is the result of the action that dictates the decision to prosecute," said Meshbesher. In normal life a person shoots at another person and misses, we still prosecute because we know there was an intent. But in hockey, it is only when the stick lands that you get any attention."


Add to the fact that contact sports create a fine line between what is a crime and what that is part of the game. Making it tough to prove intent.

Contact sports are difficult to legislate, because violence is justifiably central to the game. Players are trained at a very young age to retaliate because they cannot allow themselves to be intimidated by an opponent. This is especially true in hockey where fighting is an accepted, if not condoned, behavior.

After all, not every notably violent act has been prosecuted. Mike Tyson never faced charges for biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear in their heavyweight title bout. And last November, Kansas authorities refused to indict former Witchita State pitcher Ben Christensen after he beaned a batter in the on-deck circle with a ninety mile-per-hour fastball.

The goal of course is to try and prevent similar incidents from happening again. And with the poor success rates of prosecutors, maybe it's best to leave it in the hands of the league themselves to dole out punishment.

Personality characteristics lead to bad behaviour:

Had to stop and think for a moment when I stumbled upon this article. Psychologist Paulien Wallin suggests that athletes in general have certain personality characteristics that lead to their bad behaviour.

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Wallin7.html

She suggests that athletes are more aggressive and competitive due to the nature of the game they are competing in.

That's a given - how else would they rise to the top? People who are aggressive and competitive don't back down from a challenge - whether it's in the face of the opponent on the playing field, or in response to the word "no" in the bedroom.

She also argues that athletes have great confidence and more to the point an inflated level of self confidence. That in itself, she states, can lead to risky behaviour.

The athletes who get into trouble probably do some calculating of risk. But because of their psychological defenses, their calculations are way off. They minimize the consequence of risky behavior, in order to justify it. Thus, when an opportunity comes up, they convince themselves that nothing bad is going to happen and nobody's going to get hurt.

Finally she adds stimulation to the mix arguing that once a game is over they need to look elsewhere to satisfy that fix. It becomes like an addiction that needs to be satisfied.

The need for stimulation, combined with miscalculating risk, is what compromises the judgment of people who drive recklessly, use drugs, get into physical fights, engage in adultery and commit acts of violence. To that extent, sports stars have to work harder than the rest of us to stay out of trouble.

Win at all costs:

This most interesting article suggests there's the atittude among athletes that they are willing to risk everything just for the chance at being a champion. The negatives doesn't seem to matter much as long as they win.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/28/AR2007072801369.html?hpid=topnews

In the mid-1990s, sports medicine specialist Robert Goldman dropped a poisonous question in the locker rooms of Olympic athletes, informally wondering the following:

"If I had a drug that was so fantastic that if you took it once, you would win every competition you would enter, from Olympic decathlon to the Mr. Universe, for the next five years. But it had one minor drawback: It would kill you five years after you took it. Would you still take it?"

Fifty-two percent of those he asked said they would.

Money money money, it's not so funny, in an athletes world:

This was an interesting article that I stumbled upon. Author Doug Robinson talks about the mix of wealth, jewelry, and fancy automobiles and how it can lead to trouble. Throw in a night club or a bar and you have a recipie for disaster.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20070226/ai_n18633065/pg_1

A few examples he talks about:

-- Ray Lewis and friends were at a Super Bowl party at an Atlanta nightclub in 2000 when they became embroiled in a brawl that left two men stabbed to death.

-- Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was shot to death in a limousine at 2 a.m. on New Year's Eve following a heated argument at a Denver nightclub between his group and another group.

.-- Antoine Walker, playing for the Celtics at the time, was robbed of $100,000 worth of jewelry and cash outside a nightclub in 2000.

Well, you get the picture.

The author goes on to suggest that athletes are easy prey - vulnerable in a way. In fact coach Rick Majerus probably summed this up best when he addressed his team before they played in the 1992 NIT tournament in New York.

"You guys think you're tough," he began. "You have no idea. There are people here who would kill you just for looking at them wrong. They have nothing to lose. They don't care. Don't go to the wrong places. Don't get in confrontations. If you do, walk away."

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Feel free to disagree or comment on what I have found.

[Da_Chief]

Thats alot to read....iand i didnt readt it but i will add, money can make you do crazy things, regardless if you have it or not...

if you don't have it, you will want it.

if you have it, you want more and do things you havent done before.