Remember when Sports News Actually Had Something to Do with Sports?

I don't know about you, but I miss the days when you could go to your favorite sports television station or website and actually find news about sports. I'm talking about the kind of news that involves scores and highlights or maybe an occasional player biography piece. Lately, every time I click on my favorite sports sites I feel like I'm reading the police blotter. By the time I get done reading about who got arrested or indicted or suspended, I don't even care who won or what the score was.

It doesn't matter what sport you're into, every one of them is being made a mockery of by criminals and degenerates of all kinds. From rapists and wife beaters to cheaters and substance abusers just to name a few. You can find them all in your favorite sports news. It's hard to tell the difference between ESPN and COURT TV anymore.

The NFL has probably led the way in recent years with the number of incidents they have endured from their so called professional athletes. I'd like to suggest to anyone who runs a fantasy football website that they add a "prison watch" section so people can keep track of whether or not their favorite players will be released in time for the season opener.

In the NBA, it's probably worse because they have a lot less players than the NFL yet they still grab their fair share of headlines. On top of everything else, you have players fighting with the fans. Maybe they should consider a plexiglass partition between players and fans like hockey has. Now we have a referee, with possible mob connections, who is being investigated for possibly fixing games that he has officiated.

Baseball has been dominated in recent years by the controversy of performance enhancing substances. Most notably of these involves our new all-time home run champion.

Nascar racing must have been feeling left out the last couple of years because all you read about now is crew chiefs being fined and losing points for cheating. Lately, even the drug issue has reared it's ugly head in the world of Nascar.

What's the reason for the apparent increase in professional athletes getting in trouble with the law? This is my opinion, for whatever it's worth. Even as children, the best athletes get way too much attention. If a child starts to show a lot of potential in a certain sport, they begin to receive special treatment. Academics suddenly begin to take a back seat to athletic accomplishments. What do you hear more often? "My son got an A on his history test", or "My son scored the winning touchdown in last night's game". I don't mean to say that there aren't parents who place more importance on academics. I do, however, think we can agree that it's a lot less often that we hear someone bragging about their children's grades as opposed to their successes in sports. If he or she continues to excel as the years go by, they are treated like celebrities before they even get out of high school. This trend continues through the collegiate level where they are always in the spotlight because of their athletic accomplishments. After so many years of being given hero status, by the time they become professional athletes, it's easy for them to begin to feel a sense of entitlement. By this I mean that everything has come pretty easy for them due to the fact that they were star athletes so they think they should continue to receive special treatment. This is where the trouble starts.

Many of these athletes feel that they are somehow above the law due to their celebrity status. They feel they have the right to take what they want when they want it. They truly believe that they can get away with anything. The money these people are paid has a lot to do with it as well. Does anyone else think it's ridiculous that they make millions of dollars for doing the same thing I used to do in my back yard as a kid? It sounds like a cliche, but these people really have so much money they don't know what to do with it. All of a sudden, they're thrust into the life of being on the road all the time with little supervision and all this money. If that's not a recipe for disaster, I don't know what is. They are bombarded with opportunities to experience all the alcohol, women, and drugs that a rock star could want. Many are able to make good choices and avoid these pitfalls. On the other hand, it seems like more and more athletes are allowing themselves to be enticed by this fast paced and dangerous lifestyle. What they don't realize is that they are ruining sports for the people that really pay their over inflated salaries. The fans. If it weren't for those of us that pay our hard earned money to go to the stadiums or arenas or whatever the case may be, these people would be out of work.

Don't get me wrong. I love sports and will continue to watch for now. Sooner or later though, if this recent trend continues, the fans are going to stop tuning in on television and spending their money to attend these events. When this happens, these "superstars" are going to wish they had placed more emphasis on academics than they did.