NFL Players in Prison - Football Players in Jail - Esquire

The Playbook Commentary:

The case has been made in this piece by Chuck Klosterman...although he states the problem and offers no solution, the fact still remains that there is a serious problem within the professional sports community. These young athletes, men more than women, are given narrow views of what success can look like....Sports.But, they are not taught the responsibility that comes with that form of success, or for that matter, any type of success.

They are also not given healthy alternatives, just in case they don't make it.....letting them know they can be successful with or without a professional career in sports.

Instead of continuing to illuminate the problem, I wish folks would take the energy and put it where it needs to be....in prevention and problem solving initaitives....like The Playbook: Mentoring Initiative. The professional sports brand will continue to be tarnished until a sincere effort is made to address this issue, and not continue to allow the mighty dollar to influence their decisions and efforts.

When will that happen?

The 2008 NFL Prison Football Preview

Michael Vick and countless other promising young football stars are currently doing jail time. Which is unfortunate, to be sure. But they’d make one hell of a football team.
By Chuck Klosterman

FormerPro Bowl quarterback Michael Vick is in Leavenworth. Rae Carruth, currently serving a nineteen- to twenty-four-year sentence for conspiring to kill his girlfriend, made the NFL all-rookie team in '97. Arena League linebacker Darion Conner got fifteen years for running over a bicyclist. In 2006, Michigan State defensive back Cole Corey was sentenced to two to ten years for sexual assault.

Last January, an offensive tackle and a defensive end for Texas A&M were indicted for felony robbery. And this is only a sampling of the guys who got media coverage; there's no telling how many teenage criminals went to jail before they had a college career. If we selected the forty-four best football players in the U. S. penal system, how much ass would they kick?

Right now, 2.3 million people are incarcerated. This is a social travesty. But -- hypothetically -- if we were to draft and train the best talent from that pool, I bet they could win the SEC or the Pac-10. They could maybe beat the Dolphins in an exhibition. Obviously, the Vick-to-Carruth connection would be key, but I have to believe prisons contain some of the most intimidating, hardest-hitting role-players on the planet. These dudes would make the '77 Raiders look like Tibetan monks.

You know, I don't like The Longest Yard. I don't think it's funny. But this I would watch.

NFL Players in Prison - Football Players in Jail - Esquire

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