Judah, I know a lot of people who feel the same way about professional athletes. Unfortunately, their actions off the field are typically only brought to the public's attention when shit goes bad (Like Vick, or Plaxico Buress, etc...). However, these are a very small minority of professional athletes. The amount of money raised and donated by professional athletes is astounding.
I read an article not to long ago (tried to find it, but could not) that talked about the charity work done by the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour is approaching (or maybe have since surpassed) 1 billion dollars in money raised for charities as a result of the players and their tournaments. That is a staggering number. I do not know of numbers off hand, but each of the major sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL) all support charities in a similar way (for example, the NLF is a big supporter of the United Way), and some teams push their players to volunteer time or donate money to these charities. As for Vick? Yes he was a scumbag for what he did. I am not going to say he 'paid his debt to society' because I really don't know what people mean by that. But he did server his full sentence (at a federal penitentiary, not a country club jail) and fulfilled, so far, the conditions of his release. While, as a Giants fan, I loathe the Eagles, I think it was a good place for him to land. Andy Ried, who's son has a litany of problems, should be the perfect coach to help him stay 'straight' and Donovan McNabb woudl be a great mentor, more for how he conducts himself off the field than as he performs on the field. I think the real travesty is Plaxico Buress will serve more time than Vick did and all Burres did was shoot himself, and both Vick and Burres will serve more time than Stallworth, who, this past off-season, was driving drunk and killed a guy. -- Scott Stroz --------------- The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson http://xkcd.com/386/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:303112 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
