By Jeff Orvis
I'm glad I didn't grow up to be a star
professional football player.
When many youngsters, especially boys,
reach a certain age, they begin dreaming about what they want to be
when they grow up. Quite often, their first wish is to be a fireman.
That wish often fades when they learn they have to be strong enough
to carry a heavy hose up a ladder, breathe in smoke and withstand
tremendous heat from fires and from the clothes they have to wear,
even when it's 100 degrees outside.
When youngsters begin school and start
studying American history, sometimes their next dream is to one day
become president. After all, you get to live in that big house in
Washington and whenever you decide to go somewhere, traffic stops for
you. That dream may last until you find out that at any given day,
half of the country loves you and half of the country hates you. You
learn that you have to decide when to send your armed forces into
battle and when to console the survivors when some of those soldiers
and sailors don't come home alive. You have to have all the answers,
from financial to ethical. You learn that the big house you live in
becomes a prison. Since you are the most recognizable person in the
world, your ability to simply walk down to the corner for a sandwich
is gone forever. Remember that half of the population that hates you?
From your first steps, even before
dreams of firemen or presidents, somebody might toss a Nerf football
to you. Then on any given Sunday in the fall, when you pass by the TV
at home, you notice that some really big guys are playing with a ball
that looks a little like that little foam ball you are carrying. And
that's when the dream of becoming a pro football star is born.
A few years later, you develop
friendships in your neighborhood. As the weather cools and the leaves
begin to fall, you put away that baseball glove and bat and look for
at least three other friends for a game of touch football. If you're
lucky, a couple of years later, you have a chance to don pads and
helmet to play in a junior tackle football league. Then it's on to
junior high and high school, where fall Friday nights are truly
special.
By the time you get to high school,
you realize that life begins the first part of August when you report
for preseason drills. Once classes start, you slog through your
studies with one eye on the clock, wishing it was time for practice
or time to get on the bus to head for the Friday night game.
For a select few, the dream doesn't
end with your last game as a high school senior. In fact, if you have
piled up impressive statistics, you are already being showered with
letters and visits from college coaches. You think you are the
football king of the world, unless you have paid enough attention in
math class to figure out that junior colleges, small schools and
major universities are all attempting to fill their big rosters.
Coaches use the same speech in your living room about how great you
are and how much they want you as they will tomorrow night in another
senior's living room.
So if you decide on a college and pass
the stringent academic screening process of your chosen school and
the NCAA, you have four or five years to mature much more,
emotionally, physically and mentally.
Four or five years later, you may find
yourself backstage during the NFL Draft, hoping and praying that
those years of preparation will pay off and your name will be called
by the commissioner sooner rather than later. The sooner it's called,
the better chance you have at making the team and the accompanying
riches.
So you hear your name called, you pose
for pictures, attend a press conference and head for training camp.
The team likes you and soon you are one of the major factors in your
team's success. The money starts rolling in. Women who are more
beautiful than any you left back in your hometown begin to notice
you. It's easy to feel like you have the world by the tail and you
are invincible.
Then one night, you and the lady
you've chosen walk into an elevator on a night out in a casino. You
soon walk out of the elevator and drag your unconscious lady behind
you.
Or maybe you have weekend custody of
your toddler from a relationship with a woman that went sour. The
woman is bitter about the breakup and when her son is returned to her
and she notices that his legs are covered with cuts, she calls
police.
Or maybe you decide that on an off
night you want a little fun. So you call up some of your friends,
stick the pistol in your belt for protection and head to a nightclub.
A few hours later, there's a shooting and even though you claim you
had nothing to do with it, that you were just in the wrong place at
the wrong time, the police notice your unlicensed pistol and as you
are being led out of the club in handcuffs, suddenly dozens of press
photographers appear and your image takes a real hit.
It only takes one momentary lapse in
good judgment and all those years of dreams and preparation melt
away. What has taken you 10-15 years to achieve is gone. You are the
topic of sports talk shows for a few weeks and then you are all but
forgotten. If you haven't had a good money manager, your wealth might
soon be gone and you are suddenly on the outside looking in on the
work world.
The NFL is tremendous entertainment.
As you watch your favorite team play on Thursday, Sunday or Monday,
don't think about those few individuals we've heard about recently
that apparently made the wrong choices. Be grateful for the hundreds
of players who put on their uniforms each week and can still play the
sport they love, that they've prepared for ever since somebody tossed
them their first football just after they learned to walk.
I'm glad I didn't become a pro
football star. I love the game. But the only ingredient I had that
would have qualified me for such a career was a stable home life,
with a loving mother and father, growing up. They never told me I
couldn't be a football star or fireman or the president. But they
furnished me with the education and good sense to realize that there
were other career paths that were more attainable.
I never was able to sign a big sports
contract and buy Mom a new house or Dad a new car, but somehow we all
survived. I also don't have a history of concussions...or a police
record.