It seems that we will be unable to avoid launching into the "helmet debate" now that a high-profile athlete has suffered injuries due to a motorcycle accident. Ben was not wearing a helmet, thus the argument will rage. If you've never heard Jerry Seinfeld's take on this in his "Live on Broadway" concert, its definitely worth the listen. However, I find it humorous when television personalities try to get inside the head of professional athletes.

Professional athletes are different from average people. All people that are at the top of their profession are different. People who earned their way to the top have an internal drive that the common man cannot understand. The common man wants to understand it, thus the fascination with movie stars, athletes, and all things celebrity. While we were out on dates, they were doing push-ups. While we were sleeping, they were shooting jumpers. While we were watching baseball, they were out playing baseball. People at this level are consumed by competitiveness, fear of failure, and anything else that forces them to do that extra drill.  Jimmy Dugan said it best in the movie League of their Own.  When confronting his star player when she wanted to quit pro baseball when it "got too hard" he said, "It's supposed to be hard.  If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it."

This is not to discount the aspect of natural ability. There are many people who work extremely hard that just don't have "it". However, talent will only take someone so far. We've all known someone that we watched in high school or in the park that took our breathe away. Some people wrote about such people in their NGS II first assignment. For some reason they don't make it.

With this drive and immense success, especially in sports that are inherently physical, a natural sense of invincibility sets in. Enter Big Ben, or Kellen Winslow, or Jeff Kent, or any number of athletes who behave in ways that we would consider normal if they didn't make millions of dollars. In actuality, people with these salaries are more likely to participate in these activities because they need new challenges. They have conquered things that to most people seem impossible. Why is it then surprising that they look at other dangerous behaviors without fear? If you can stand in and throw a football with Michael Strahan bearing down on you, how afraid of a bike ride would you be?

How many times when you were 24 years old did you think of all the things you could have lost? Sure you probably weren't a millionaire, but early 20-something males just don't work that way. I can see, at 27 years old, the difference in just this short amount of time. I'm getting married next month, and the thought of losing my future wife scares me. It makes me more thoughtful in my decisions. It makes me more conservative in a lot of ways. Before her, let 'er rip! I have something to lose that means more to me than material things. Money is not going to change what's special to you. Haven't we seen enough stories of athletes and other rich people blowing through their money to know that. Risk takers are risk takers no matter what their salary is. Pro athletes have to be risk takers just to be pro athletes.

No matter what, there is never a point in an athletes developmental life where the odds are in his favor to make it big in the pros. Never. They are risk takers. That's why we love them. That's why we watch them. That's why the put themselves in these situations. Helmet law or no helmet law, these kind of accidents will happen again unfortunately. Maybe not to Ben, but to someone.