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10 Athletes Who’ve Been Caught Smoking Tobacco
By Chris Harty
July 15, 2014
Despite what some rabid fans may lose sight of from time to time, athletes are people too. Professional athletes are the elite of the elite, men and women who have sacrificed everything in their lives for an opportunity to be the among the best in the world in their chosen sport. The road to greatness is a difficult one filled with blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice. Before they ‘make it’, most professional athletes don’t get to have a normal life. They can’t stay out late with friends because they have to be up early in the morning to train, they can’t eat the same food as everyone else because that greasy, fatty meal that their friends are eating will slow them down in the game later, and they can’t party like everyone else because their hopes and dreams depend on their bodies being in peak physical condition.
Putting that kind of pressure on a human being from the time they’re a child is bound to create some problems. Life isn’t meant to be lived in a pressure cooker. Inevitably, the athletes who fail to learn how to relax and unwind properly and healthily end up – more often than not – spiralling out of control. For every player that learns to unwind doing some post-workout yoga, you have the ones who decide to live a little closer to the edge, a little closer to the average joe. After all, what’s more relaxing than a leisurely cigarette break?
1. Michael Jordan
The best basketball player of all time is also a cigar aficionado. Every aspiring basketball player growing up in the 90s wanted to be ‘Like Mike’, but I don’t think they realized that being like Mike meant smoking a cigar on the way to each home game. That’s right, Jordan allegedly smoked a cigar before his home games as a way to loosen up and get ready to perform. That’s not a victory cigar after the game, or a celebratory cigar on a special occasion, that’s straight tobacco to the system before stepping onto the court. How amazing do you have to be to show up to a game with elite athletes after smoking a whole cigar to yourself – which is incredibly difficult in itself, just ask my lungs – and then step onto the court and remind everyone why you’re the best ever?
Throughout his career, Barkley had been arguing that athletes should not be considered role models.[6] He stated, "A million guys can dunk a basketball in jail; should they be role models?"[41] In 1993, his argument prompted national news when he wrote the text for his "I am not a role model" Nike commercial. Dan Quayle, the formerVice President of the United States, called it a "family-values message" for Barkley's oft-ignored call for parents and teachers to quit looking to him to "raise your kids" and instead be role models themselves.[40]
Barkley's message sparked a great public debate about the nature of role models. He argued,
I think the media demands that athletes be role models because there's some jealousy
involved. It's as if they say, this is a young black kid playing a game for a living and making
all this money, so we're going to make it tough on him. And what they're really doing is telling
kids to look up to someone they can't become, because not many people can be like we are.
Kids can't be like Michael Jordan.
Hear about TCU's qb and wide receiver? -They are in the Alamo bowl tomorrow.
TCU QB Boykin Arrested For Assaulting Peace Officer
and there probably should have been more suspended. Seems several team mstes tried to stop him They all also snuck out after bed check.
once again, following THEIR role models in the NFL.
Hear about TCU's qb and wide receiver? -They are in the Alamo bowl tomorrow.
TCU QB Boykin Arrested For Assaulting Peace Officer
and there probably should have been more suspended. Seems several team mstes tried to stop him They all also snuck out after bed check.
once again, following THEIR role models in the NFL.
The day after this post, I talked with a friend, and sadly he had heard about it too. A talent like that should not be lost for such a screwed up reason. What goes on inside a bar should stay there. Who really knows what happened? It is ludicrous.
That reminded me of what this friend of mine told me a few years ago about a boxer, Anthony Chavez. I had gone with my friend's daughter to Santa Cruz where he was training and got to shake his hand.
Chavez was then a hot contender for a yet unscheduled fight, but it would have happened shortly. He was 38-1. Anthony had given us 5 tickets to sit ring-side at his fight in Las Vegas. We were ecstatic because sitting together with us would have been Don King and Sugar Ray Leonard. That would have been a dream ride to Vegas having my '70 Duster 340 clean and ready for our trip.
Chavez said this was his first "money-fight!"
I didn't watch the game. Did TCU win?
10/17/09 at 9:33 A
Boykin got what he deserved. If it were anyone else, they would have been arrested.There are consequences for your actions. People need to live in the real world and not be pampered because they are athletic.
