A Great Week To Be A Role Model

I don’t have any kids yet, and for the most part, I hate children. But fathers and sons tend to have a special relationship; one which is woven by some of their favorite athletes and sports teams. My father and I bonded over football and basketball games. But bonding isn’t enough when you are an inquisitive young child.

When you are under the age of 11, you must have every question on your mind answered, immediately. And as a father, you are expected to answer all these questions. Sometimes, the questions get tough. Who could forget last year’s difficult question, “Daddy, what is a dog fighting circuit?”

The questions that are especially dangerous are questions regarding the seven deadly sins of sports. And this week was an awful week for sports, as it encountered three of the seven sins; lying, drug use and stealing (the other four are: cheating, spousal abuse, hitting fans and of course, being Roger Clemens).

A week in sports like this week is often a nightmare for fathers because they are going to ask you about all three of these stories. Lucky for you, The Takeover has created this guide on how to answer these questions.

We begin in Rye, New York, where the NBA was holding its annual rookie transition program. The event is four days long and consists of a bunch of lectures and exercises that teach expected NBA behavior and give tips on quickly adapting to NBA life. Basically what I’m trying to say is, if you are an NBA player with a bad habit of smoking reefer, you are going to want to not smoke for these four days.

Apparently Kansas heroes Darrell Arthur and Mario Chalmers missed the memo, as they were caught with weed and kicked out of the program. The funnier thing about this is a) these four days are literally the only four days out of the year that the NBA cares if you smoke weed, and b) I didn’t even know people had weed in Alaska.

Now fathers, your kids are going to ask you about weed and there are two approaches you can take to answering this. I suggest either way that you first explain that marijuana is an illegal drug in the US. It is up to you to then make the following choice.  First, you could tell your son that marijuana is totally “rad” and should have been made legal decades ago. Or you could take the more conservative approach and tell your son that weed is an awful thing and that everyone who smokes it ends up homeless, tap-dancing for money in the New York subway system.  It should be noted however that both approaches, according to my research, still leave your son with a 50% chance of loving weed. God bless America.

The next one is not nearly as difficult. Lying is bad, and it has always been bad, but your children need to know that some people must lie in order to protect themselves, and 70 million dollars.

Case in point: Monta Ellis. Ellis is widely regarded as one of the leagues most talented young players but now has a serious issue. Ellis did serious damage to one of his ankles and had surgery last week to repair it. He said that the injury happened while he was playing basketball in an off season workout, and the Golden State Warriors immediately declared shenanigans.

It turns out the Warriors were right. League sources are indicating that it was physically impossible for Ellis to have obtained that kind of ankle injury on a basketball court. This will more than likely put Ellis’ brand new contract in serious jeopardy.

I will assume that since he lied about it in the first place, he was trying to hide something that was prohibited for him to do in his contract, and that is what you must tell your son. Tell him that Ellis broke the rules and was afraid to admit it, and it is always better to just admit when you are wrong, as opposed to lying and causing an investigation into your personal life.  Your son may also ask you what a “league source” is. If he does, it is totally okay for you to answer “Son, a league source is a lie made up by a desperate sportswriter.”

Now, when I was a young boy, I played sports by the following motto that my dad gave me: “If you can’t beat ‘em, steal their personal belongings.” I always thought the motto was a little odd and frankly, unsportsmanlike.  Growing up it caused a number of break-ups among friends, but it's okay because I am an adult now. To my surprise however, there is still at least one man living by that adage. Tatum Bell is only two years removed from a 1,000 yard season. On the other hand, he is only one day removed from jacking another grown man’s personal belongings.

On Monday, the Lions brought in Rudi Johnson, a Pro Bowl caliber running back who was cut by the Bengals (for no real reason may I add). It became pretty clear that the Lions, who have not had a sound running game in a decade, would sign Rudi Johnson. This in turn left Tatum Bell without a spot on the roster.

Bell, a very proud individual apparently, decided that he wanted to be forever remembered in the hearts of Lions fans. He did so of course, by stealing everything that Johnson brought with him to his Monday meeting including all of his clothes, his cash, his photo IDs and his credit cards.  Here’s the kicker...No one knew Bell did it until they reviewed surveillance tape and saw Bell doing it. On the other end of the spectrum, Rudi Johnson continued to be the man by insisting that he deal with Bell one on one, instead of pressing police charges against him.

When your son asks you what happened here, there is only one way you can explain it: Tatum Bell had a nervous breakdown. Hell, if I thought I was going to remain jobless, I’d probably steal something. But you can’t say that last part to your kid. You have to sternly enforce that stealing is wrong.  The only place that you can steal from is the cafeteria of your college, if it is run by Chartwells. You see, Chartwells sells food at colleges for movie theater prices, therefore making it okay to steal from them. You may want to not tell your kid that last part either, but I digress.

Although these three scenarios are totally different, they will be tied up the exact same way by any kid. In all three instances, the kid will look up at you and say “but daddy, why would someone do that?” The answer is universal. “Well son, they’re not getting paid the big bucks to solve global warming.”