Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock waxes philosophic about why pro athletes should never marry, at least not in the prime of their careers at the peak of their earning capacity. Whitlock is talking about this topic in light of Steve McNair's recent murder, but as he astutely points out, it is bigger than that.
My take is that pro athletes and professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.), should hold off on marriage as long as possible. I always wanted to be married before I finished law school so I would know my wife wasn't with me just because I am a lawyer, but it wasn't meant to be. Strangely, although my occupation is a good conversation piece and is somewhat impressive to the ladies, it was never the basis of a relationship. Even now, my wife respects me because I am an attorney, but she would be happy with me no matter what I did as long as I was happy and could be a good provider. I waited until I was almost 30 to get married, and it was a wise thing to do. I would recommend it to pro football players, because that's when they usually start on the downside of their careers (except for elite quarterbacks, who can play into their late 30s or early 40s). Bottom line, if pro athletes who stand to make a fortune aren't married before they get rich, they should stay single until their playing days are over, or at a minimum, they should get the best lawyer they can find and have the woman sign the most ironclad prenuptial agreement possible.
Money quotes are below, check it out.
"Besides a strip club, massage parlor or whore house, I can't think of a work environment less supportive of a monogamous, healthy relationship than a men's locker room.
Strange Tang is the No. 1 topic of conversation inside a locker room. It's not steroids, the playbook or the next opponent. It's gossip about strip clubs, girls met in soon-to-be-visited cities on Facebook and Myspace and getting drunk.
Oh, you might occasionally overhear someone on the God Squad chitchatting about the next Bible study or the evils of the Internet porn they accidently looked at for 90 minutes. But mostly the locker room is a haven for unapologetic sinners. It's a place where you pick up a lot of bad habits.
A professional locker room is filled with in-shape, wealthy young men. They're carted around the country in private planes. They're at an age when they and their peers are supposed to do their hardest partying. They're members of an elite fraternity, and their membership in the fraternity can expire at any moment.
What would you do? More than likely, you'd go as hard as you could for as long as you could.At the very least, you'd occasionally dabble.
Why get married?
The athlete and the wife know it's a lie on their wedding day. He knows he's on a moving train and he can't jump off. She knows she jumped on that moving train and it never really slowed the whole time they were dating. It might've momentarily stopped, unloaded old passengers and re-boarded new ones, but she knows exactly where the train is headed and has a pretty good estimate on just how many miles are left on the trip.
The desperate hope is the marriage will survive until he retires and then the train will stop for good. That's the biggest pipe dream going. By the time the train stops, he absolutely loves the ride. He can't sleep without the steady hum of the tracks, the rocking of the compartment, the look and the smell of the new passengers.
He's a full-blown addict in desperate need of his next high when they retire his jersey. That's why he's hitting on teenagers working the drive-thru window at fast food joints. That's why he's proposing to 22-year-old strippers. He has a habit to feed.
If you're a millionaire athlete and you haven't made the mistake of impregnating half the women in your old neighborhood/college campus, why not hire someone to clean your house, prepare your home-cooked meals and date whomever you choose, whenever you choose? Get over your insecurity that you better lock her up while you're in the league because she might not want you when you get cut and she figures out the only money-producing skill you have is throwing a football, fielding a groundball or hitting a three off a screen.
There's a damn good chance she's just as insecure as you are and has less to offer. She'll wait. Or someone just like her will.
They say it's cheaper to keep her. The truth is, most athletes should never purchase anything. Just test drive. That way, the new car smell they love never goes away."
