Sometimes I truly wonder why I am a sports fan, especially when you consider how the people who play the sports I enjoy seem to care less about the game than I do.

Take a good long look at your favorite team(s), and I will bet you that at least half of team members could give a rat's spit about you or any other fan for that matter.  They care about #1, first and foremost, and the virtually anyone else can go take a flying leap, in their opinion.

Now, with that said, let me qualify this a bit, because I know I've just sounded harsh.  I accept they give up a LOT to be famous, most notably their privacy.  But then again, they get paid a staggering amount of money to do what they do, and part of that salar includes being good ambassadors for the games they play in order to keep the road paved for those who come after them. 

I'll throw out three personal experiences as examples of what I am talking about here:

Back when I was in my teens, and we called the Phoenix Suns the Phoenix Nuns (because they won NUN of their games at the time, the team being jacked up on coke for the most part), I attended a home game against the Lakers with my Grandfather.  He was a bus driver, and a guy whom he picked up every day gave my grandfather his pair of courtside tickets because he thought he was a damn nice guy (quite astute of him, because my grandfather WAS a damn nice guy).  Anyways, after the game was over, and Showtime had driven the Nuns into another drug induced coma, as he was leaving the court my Grandfather reached out to shake Magic Johnson's hand as he walked by, and Magic not only stopped to shake his hand, he gave me his towel he had thrown around his neck and shook my hand as well, saying "thanks for coming out to see us all play".  He didn't have to do it, but Magic was, for all his other faults, a great ambassador of the game, and he realized that without us sitting in the seats, there's no money to pay for those houss, cars, and "posse's" that today's players seem to take so much for granted.  Needless to say it made quite an impression on me.

A few years later I was in a video store deciding on a rental, when in walked Richard Dumas, who was at one time quite the rising star for the Suns before drugs and some serious personal issues got in the way.  He was alone, except for a woman on his arm, and he was almost immediately surrounded by fans, except for me.  Don't ask me why but my gut told me "hey, this guy's on his own time, leave him alone" so I went about my business, and when I was walking out after picking out my videos, Dumas caught me at the door, and he offered me his autograph, since I was wearing a Suns T-shirt at the time.  I thanked him and said he didn't have to, I knew he was there to do something personal, and he said "I know, that's why I'm offering, you were the only one who had that kind of respect, so I wanted to say thanks, and thanks for being a fan of the Suns."  And with that he took out his pen and autographed my receipt.

Now the third tale.  This took place about 5 years after the Dumas incident, and the company I was working for had scored a luxury box for a Suns/Bulls home game.  As one of the managers, I got to go.  We lost the game (I have NEVER been to a Suns home game where we have won, curiously enough, I've only ever seen them lose, though I have seen them win on the road, go figure), and afterwards I watched John Paxson and Bill Cartwright walk over with Kevin Johnson to a boy at courtside who was in a wheelchair, and they gave him a signed basketball, and stood for photo's after they wheeled him out on the court.  I found out later through the local paper that the boy in question just happened to be there, and was a huge fan of both teams.  The players got wind of it and set the whole thing up during halftime as a surprise for the boy.  It wasn't a Make-A-Wish kind of thing, or something they had to do to get their names in the paper, it was just something they did because they wanted to. 

Look, I'm not saying that pro athletes need to do these kinds of things on an everyday basis, they have their lives to live just like we do, they just have a lot more means than we do to live their life, that's all.  But when you hear pro athletes, who make as a yearly MINIMUM more than most of us will make in a lifetime, whine and complain about the pay, and then at the same time basically treat the job as a 9-5 occupation, it's amazing that we as a society tolerate that.

Basic rule of business is this, whenever a company pays you $1 in salary they are expecting to make at least $1.25 back, and as you climb up the ladder that ratio gets larger and larger, to where if you make $100k the company will expect about $400k in revenue from you for whatever it is you do.  Now apply that ratio to a multimillionaire pro athlete, and you find the ratio to be enormous.

Just in the recent sports news, you have athletes who refuse to face reality and admit their responsibility (Clemens) all in the name of protecting their so called legacy (whereas no one ever thinks that by just standing up and saying "I did it" their legacy would actually be more solidified), to the Latrell Sprewells who think $25 million dollars isn't enough to feed a family (I would like to take him to a third world country and show him how many families that kind of money could feed), and now you have Devean George, who is basically a scrub, playing scrub minutes and giving scrub productivity, but has a heightened sense of self importance to the point where he wants to hold up a trade that would improve his team's chances of winning a title (supposedly, I'll write more on the trade if it goes through), just so his "small salary" could possibly grow next year.

Hate to tell you Mr George, but you just killed your chances of getting any kind of a contract for anything other league minimum by what you just did.  I'm all for looking out for number one, but sometimes when you are a pro athlete, and you play like #2, you gotta just shut up, drop to your knees, and thank God almighty that someone with so little real talent is permitted to make that kind of money in the first place, and not go looking for more money that you haven't earned. 

Again, it all comes down to professionalism, and respect.  Those that have it, for themselves, the game, and the fans, HAVE legacies that we all celebrate and admire.  Those who don't have these priorities tend to end up like so many other has beens and never was, just a footnote in someone's team roster.

Ok, I've just pushed the OFF button on my Rant.  Thanks for reading!

Dal