Ben Roethlisberger almost just drove himself out of a career. The youngest quarterback to guide a team to the Super Bowl Championships is lucky to be a live let alone have the opportunity to return to the football field. After colliding with car while riding his Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle on Monday morning, the 24 year-old Pittsburg Steeler became just another adrenalin infused athlete fortunate to survive a horrible motorcycle accident. Whether athletes believe they are invincible, or are just plain ignorant to the idea of injury the one lesson we can learn is that athletes and motorcycles don’t mix. I’m glad that Roethlisberger survived the accident only a broken jaw and nose and some missing teeth, and hope that he makes a full recovery. But I’m having a hard time remembering when exactly athletes became everyday Evil Knievels. How else can we explain why these professionals are constantly turning their off-field lives into a version of Red Asphalt? And the guilty include: Cleveland Browns tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. who missed the entire NFL season after sustaining internal injuries and damage to his shoulder and knee after crashing his Hayabusa motorcycle while learning to drive it; Jamie Henderson, a cornerback for the New York Jets, survived a 2004 motorcycle wreck, but he missed the entire season and was subsequently cut; and who can forget about Jay Williams, the slick-handling rookie point guard for the Chicago Bulls who is very fortunate to be alive after crashing his bike into a light pole and ending his career before it had a chance to blossom. He was even caught on videotape weeks before the accident, joking that he shouldn’t be on the bike. Well, looks like that joke didn’t exactly end up so funny. The Duke graduate was smart enough to realize that riding a motorcycle was a bad idea, but he still did anyways. Smart people can act dumb in certain situations, which is the case with most of these ####-rocket riding stars. (The list of accident prone athletes also includes Jerome Mathis, Dario Franchitti, Hermann Maier, Marcus Robertson, Kenny Mixon, Gary Brown, Jermaine Smith, Steve Howe and Shawn Price). I’m sensing a trend. These guys need to spend a little more time studying game film and a little less time speeding through rush hour traffic. Maybe I just don’t understand the draw of a motorcycle. I might be old-fashioned, but cars have these things called seat belts that upon collision spare your body from being violently thrown around. Motorcycles unfortunately are not equipped with this life saving device, yet there is a motorcycle specific device called a helmet that is your best safety precaution. Wait, Big Ben wasn’t wearing a helmet! Let me guess, helmets just aren’t very cool for a manly, Super Bowl winning, bachelor. Tell me about it. I used to hate wearing my bicycle helmet when riding to school every morning because it looked far from cool, and the third grade ladies let me know it. But I was smart enough to realize that if a thousand pound steel car comes barreling down on me, I liked my chances of surviving better with that Bell helmet on. Just last year, in an interview with ESPN, Roethlisberger asked why he doesn’t wear a helmet when he rides. His response, “Because you don't have to. It's not the law. If it was the law, I'd definitely have one on every time I rode. But it's the law and I know I don't have to and you're just more free when you're out there with no helmet on.” Well buddy, the Steelers don’t have to pay you millions of dollars, but they do. And if you are putting your career in jeopardy with your actions, don’t be surprised if they are a little upset with you. It boggles my mind that by day, Roethlisberger and every other NFL players wears a helmet for safety, but by night a helmet is the furthest thing from their head. In the meantime, professional athletes continue to put their careers and lives in jeopardy by investing thousands of dollars into two-wheel death traps. Hopefully this latest tragic accident will draw the attention of some other motorcycle riding athletes. Maybe just one of them will be go against the grain and drive a car around town. They might not look as cool as Roethlisberger does on his bike, but to some people having your face in tact and a professional sports career is cool enough.
