(In this photo: Pacman Jones)I don't understand some of these athletes...These guys are being paid millions of dollars to do their job and play a game, whether it's football, baseball, or basketball. But, they don't just do their job, they can't stay out of trouble. From shootings to arrests, it seems like some athletes just can't control themselves. But where does the problem lie? Is it the team and the coaches who should be controlling their players? Or is every player responsible for his own actions?
The first example I'll give is basketball player Stephen Jackson on the Golden State Warriors. In the past three years, Jackson has been charged with felony criminal recklessness, as well as other misdemeanors including assault, disorderly conduct, and two counts of battery. Jackson was on the Indiana Pacers during all these problems and he was also involved with the famous brawl in Detroit in 2004 when Jackson and other Pacers went into the crowd and fought with spectators. How does a team allow so many things like this to happen with one of their players? If I had control over a team, I would make sure every single player stays out of trouble. No matter how good the player is, you need to be clean, especially for the millions of dollars you are being payed to play.
Another example of this behavior is Adam "Pacman" Jones. Pacman is just plain hilarious in his antics. On July 13, 2005, Pacman was arrested for assault and felony vandalism stemming from a nightclub incident. A little over a month later, Pacman was arrested for disorderly conduct and public intoxication. Both clubs that Pacman visited were strip clubs. There were about 5 other incidents between 2005 and 2007 when Pacman received fines and such for minor violations. He did enough bad, he couldn't do anything else right? We are talking about Pacman Jones here! In 2007, the NBA All-Star Game was in Las Vegas, the party capital of the country. You bet your bottom dollar Pacman was there. He got in an altercation with a stripper named Minxx at a local strip club in Vegas. This escalated as a fight between Jones' entourage and the strip club bodyguards. There was a shooting involved later that night, but that's besides the point. This guy just doesn't know when to quit. The NFL suspended him for the entire 2007 season, due to all his legal troubles. He repeatedly asked the NFL to be reinstated, but that is just proposterous. It was great to see the NFL took a stand against this kind of behavior. Oh yeah, on January 15, 2008, Pacman was accused of hitting a woman at a strip club in Atlanta, Georgia. The woman claimed that on January 3, 2008, Pacman assaulted her in the club. The woman later dropped charges for unknown reasons.
You have to respect Commissioner Roger Goodell of the NFL for laying down the law with Pacman. The sad part about this whole story is, Pacman is a very good football player. He is a 5'10 cornerback with speed and great athletic ability, even though he's only played in the NFL for 2 seasons. Same goes for Stephen Jackson. Jackson is a very good basketball player, but his problems side-tracked him at times. Jackson seems to have cleaned up his act, but Jones continues with these problems. It is sad to say, but the only way these players learn is when something bad happens. NFL star Sean Taylor was recently shot and killed in his home. It is still unclear as to why he was shot, but there have been reports of his close friends saying he was doing things he shouldn't have been doing and it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.
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