I don’t want to write a whole lot on this subject for two reasons: this is far from being an isolated case; and second, I don’t want to single out one player among dozens/hundreds.
Former Minnesota Viking/Miami Dolphin quarterback Daunte Culpepper surrendered his nearly 10,000-square-foot home to SunTrust Bank back in April in lieu of foreclosure, and the bank dropped its lawsuit against the three-time Pro Bowler earlier this month Culpepper purchased the home for approximately $3.6 million after he was traded to the Dolphins and signed an eight-year deal worth nearly $60 million.
Despite leading the Vikings to the NFC championship game in his first year as a starter in 2000, a serious knee injury derailed his Vikings career in 2005, and he was traded to the Dolphins in 2006. He never fully recovered on the field from the knee injury and a shoulder problem. Despite spending three more years in the NFL with the Oakland Raiders and Detroit Lions, and playing for the United Football League’s Sacramento Mountain Lions in 2010, Culpepper reportedly had $3 million in debt in court papers.
Again, I don’t want to make a villain of Daunte Culpepper – according to Sports Illustrated in 2009 (quoted on USA Today.com) estimated that 78 percent of NFL players are bankrupt or in serious financial difficulty within two years of walking away from the game. And NFL players are far from alone: SI also estimated that 60 percent of NBA players are broke within five years of stopping playing.
The casual fan looks at these numbers and wonders what happened to these guys – how did they blow all that money? The answer is – EASY. First, most of the players aren’t very economically savvy – they think that they will get all of those millions without thinking about the taxman. The player’s agent and lawyer(s) need to be paid, plus any “entourage.” Then there are all of the “relatives” who come out of the woodwork, not to mention the “investment” opportunities that crop up. Let us not forget the women who are all too willing. It is a wicked cycle – one that is as brutal as the business of the sport they play.
I feel for Daunte Culpepper. I feel for the many players who are in financial difficulty – some for being too trusting; some for being too naïve; some for not being able to keep it in their pants. Unfortunately, all of the young men who are preparing for their first NFL training camps, or who will soon be at training camps for the NBA or NHL or even Major League Baseball think that their stories will end up differently.
Invincibility is part of the vanity of youth – multiplied a thousand-fold if the young man is talented in a sport. Will they listen to the stories of people like Daunte Culpepper? Doubtful – and we’ll hear of many of them in bankruptcy court in a few years. It’s sad.

There are fans, and then there are FANS, and for some reason, the NFL brings out the most passionate of fans. (And the league is there, ready to make a buck off it. Remember the Green and Yellow “Green Bay Packer” casket a couple of decades ago?)
NFL fans are rabid and especially so for teams who haven’t done well for decades. One thinks of the Bears, Packers, Raiders, and Buffalo Bills whose teams have had periods of mediocrity if not downright pathetic football, but the fans still sell out the stadiums and buy the gear.
Still, perhaps Cleveland Browns fans are the most put-upon. Decades of bad football, followed by having the original Browns more to Baltimore and having to watch them win two Super Bowls while Cleveland got an expansion team that has yet to succeed. At the head of long-suffering Browns fans is the now departed Scott E. Entsminger.
Mr. Entsminger died at the age of 55 and his obituary, published in The Columbus Dispatch, has received attention from the mainstream media.. Right from the start, it’s obvious that this man was a hardcore Browns fan: “A lifelong Cleveland Browns fan and season ticket holder, he also wrote a song each year and sent it to the Cleveland Browns as well as offering other advice on how to run the team.” He was such an avid supporter that his family requested that all who attend the funeral service wear their favorite Browns gear, making it a spectacle the recently departed would have truly appreciated.
The best part of this whole farewell is the “parting shot” that Entsminger left for the franchise in the obituary: “He respectfully requests six Cleveland Browns pallbearers so the Browns can let him down one last time.”
Funny. But what can be said of Chicago Cub fans?

The word “fan” in sports nomenclature is short for “fanatic.” Dictionary.com’s listing for sports fan is “an enthusiastic devotee of sports.” Just two weeks after the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, the town and this writer are still on a high that will last long into the summer. Despite that, even I realize the importance, and lack thereof, of sport. There is nothing worse than when sport is TOO important.
Which once again brings us to soccer; European soccer fans, especially in Britain have had riots, stampedes, people injured and even killed as a result of soccer matches. I even wrote a few months ago about a mob that killed a soccer referee, but in the ultimate “two wrongs don’t make a right” category, we have a soccer referee and a mob proving the point exceptionally.
In a soccer match last week in northern Brazil, Referee Jordan Silva pulled a red card out on Josenir Santo Abreu. A red card penalty is the highest penalty in a match and the player receiving the red card is ejected. Abreu reportedly “wasn’t going to take it” according to police and confronted the referee. Silva pulled a knife and plunged it into Abreu’s chest. As Abreu was rushed to the hospital, members of his family along with a number of fans caught the referee, tied him up, and started torturing him.
Abreu didn’t make it to the hospital alive. When the news got back to the soccer field, the mob stoned Silva to death then dismembered him. Police were able to identify the suspects because of the video images recorded by someone’s cell phone camera.
It is obvious that no sporting event is worth two men’s deaths. And while it is easy to put down the Brazilians (and the British) soccer fans, the same outraged fan reactions are common to most of us sports fans. It is only the small level of civility that keeps us from barbarism. We need to remember this.

There are stories that you know aren’t funny, but…
When I first say this story, I thought of a scene from “The Big Chill.” Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Kline are in a field and it is obvious that Goldblum has just finished peeing. He said “that’s the great think about the outdoors – it’s one big giant toilet.”
Not necessarily. Matthew Zeno, 30, and another man were walking north on the southbound side of the subway, near Union Avenue in Brooklyn, when Zeno paused to urinate and inadvertently contacted the third rail. The second man, who was not named by police, tried to help Zeno, but sustained an electric shock as well, police said. Both were rushed to a nearby hospital, where Zeno died of cardiac arrest. The second man was listed in serious but stable condition.
I would like to write condolences to Mr. Zeno’s family.
Still, the lesson to be learned here is to watch where one whips it out.

A common sports euphemism concerns the pressure on athletes to perform and win; we use the sayings “having or getting the monkey off one’s back.” Sometimes it’s a 600 lb. gorilla; other times, it’s a stuffed monkey like Northwestern football head coach Pat Fitzgerald had at the last two bowl games (when NU “got the monkey” off it’s back by winning its first bowl game in decades).
Then, there is having a monkey the size of an entire island on your back. That is what Andy Murray has had on his back for the past several years as the best Englishman in tennis playing at Wimbledon, where no English male had won the singles championship since 1936. Last year, he lost the final to Roger Federer, but he did play better year after year. Admittedly, the “smart money” was on the current number 1 player in the world Novak Djokovic to beat Murray again, but Murray stepped up his game to defeat Djokovic, 6-4, 7-5, 6-4. One could feel the entireity of the British Isles getting off your Murray’s back. Congratulations to him.
For all the happiness we feel for Andy Murray, we have to question one of the BBC tennis announcers at Saturday’s Women’s Championship Final. In the final, Marion Bartoli defeated Sabine Lisicki, but afterward on BBC Radio, John Inverdale asked listeners, “Do you think Bartoli’s dad told her when she was little, ‘You’re never going to be a looker? You’ll never be a [Maria] Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight.’” The Beeb stepped in an issued an apology although it is unclear whether Inverdale will be disciplined or fired over the incident.
I know that some people will just decry “political correctness,” but Ms. Bartoli had just reached the pinacle of her career winning a Grand Slam, and here is someone talking about her looks? Her achievement should be celebrated, and Mr. Inverdale should be reminded that not every woman’s champion has been gorgeous because Wimbledon and the other tennis titles are NOT beauty pageants! Yes, the women are playing in short skirts that are often revealing, and like any red-blooded man, we look at the women players with a bit of lust in our minds. We’re men – we’re pigs (and male players are attractive to women, I’m sure). I still have a major league crush on Steffi Graf, but I still marveled at her play. Some I found attractive, some players I didn’t, but that’s not what we celebrate when we watch tennis. We celebrate these remarkable athletes, which is the way it should be.

Is anyone surprised that Dwight “Dwight-mare” Howard is going to Houston? Howard is the poster-boy for all the worst in NBA players – talented, but troubled; all about me syndrome; several illegitimate children by several “baby-mamas.” Not even the presence of Kobe Bryant and the chance at an NBA title could get him to look beyond his own selfishness.
Maybe he’ll mature in Houston – but I doubt it.

Everyone at my work and many in my neighborhood know of my passion for the Blackhawks; so everyone wanted to know what I thought of the developments from this week…
Unlike 2010, a wholesale house cleaning wasn’t required, but changes were once again in the air. As the Cup seemed to show up in more places around Chicagoland than Waldo, the team’s brain trust had the draft to deal with and a franchise facing a lower salary cap for next year. First, the Hawks used their compliance buyouts on Steve Montador and left wing Rostislav Olesz. Montador suffered a concussion last season and was never a factor this season. Olesz just never seemed to be able to make the club.
The major point at first seemed to resign Bryan Bickell. Bickell came into his own in the playoffs, scoring 9 goals in the postseason after only scoring the same number in all of the regular season. Bickell offered to take a “home town” discount to stay with the team, and the Blackhawks obliged – giving him a 4-year, $16 million deal. Now, the line with captain Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane is more effective, since obviously, the line needs a gritty player to go into the corners for the puck when necessary and plant himself in the crease to bedevil the goaltender at other times. Daniel Carcillo was supposed to be in that role, but he never stayed healthy long enough (more on him later).
Then came draft day, and the Hawks were busy. First, they traded Michael Frolik, which was no surprise to me. I said that he was on his way out of town near the end of the regular season. Frolik was signed as a scorer, but he scored only 3 times in the regular season (and all against the LA Kings for some reason). We have to give him credit for changing his game and turning into a very effective forward on the penalty kill and he did have an essential penalty shot goal in the playoofs, but for the amount of money he was getting paid, you don’t pay a fourth line winger that much money. So, the Hawks shipped him to “Blackhawks Northwest,” the Winnipeg Jets, who have 2010 Stanley Cup Champion stalwarts Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien, for draft picks.
The surprise was trading center Dave Bolland for more picks. The pesky center scored the Cup winning goal but he was less effective overall than he had been in previous years, but he is going home to Toronto, a young up-and-coming team who need to learn how to win from a veteran.
Simply put, the Hawks have a number of young front liners who are ready to step up to the big club, and with the success of Andrew Shaw and Brandon Saad, obviously, these young guys are ready. That said, with Bickell resigned and being the tough guy on the first line, don’t be surprised if Carcillo is on his way out of town too.
Plus, the team has one more restricted free agent to sign – defenseman Nick Leddy. Leddy played very little in the Stanley Cup Finals because of inconsistent play, but that was the knock on Leddy last season, and during the regular season, he showed that he is ready to be one of the best blue-liners on the team (which is saying a lot with Keith, Seabrook and Oduya). In one late season game, Leddy was making end-to-end rushes like a young Bobby Orr. This is not to say that Leddy is as good as Orr ever was, but if he’s making those kind of rushes, the upside is great.

One more Blackhawks note: when the Blackhawks won in 2010, I bought a bunch of stuff – t-shirts, other memorabilia, and everything was sold out immediately and it took several days for the stuff to come back into stock. Not the case this year – the shirts, hats, etc. are plentiful, and I have most of the stuff already. I guess the NHL learned from last time.