Chris CrockettPro Athletes Should Just Say… “I Don’t”
August 11th 2009 13:36
I am a guy who dated my lovely wife for three years before getting married last September. We’re coming up on our one year anniversary… Time flies when you’re having fun! My wife has three sons from a previous marriage and I’m obviously not someone who’s on a soapbox about not believing in the act of marriage. I fully believe in marriage and I fully believe that a lot of the single ‘Don Juan’s’ out there who love to say that they live like a king and would never get married, are the types who in fact really do wish they had someone and were married. There’s nothing better than being with someone who you love and to be able to share each day with someone who you know has your back and loves you in return. That being said, why do athletes insist on getting married while they are still actively playing ball? Why? Take a look at this from a New York times article…..
Polls, studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that the divorce rate for N.F.L. players is between 60 and 80 percent, which is higher than that of the general population, where nearly half of marriages end in divorce, but comparable to athletes in other sports. “It’s a tough life to sustain a marriage,” said Raoul Felder, a celebrity divorce lawyer who represented the former wives of Mike Tyson and Patrick Ewing. “There’s a maximum of temptation and lots of money floating around. It’s a bad brew.”
This is referring to strictly the N.F.L. but the stats are pretty comparable no matter what league you want to use. I mean, I’ve said this for a long time, I just don’t get it. The life of a professional athlete is beyond hectic and challenging. I understand that some of these guys end up marrying their high school sweethearts while they are still young and I also understand that some of these marriages are ‘open’ marriages etc, which quite honestly, I never quite understood---the open marriage. Just don't get married in the first place asshats. The facts are the facts though, 60-80% of marriages in the N.F.L end in divorce. Why, you say? Well, the never ending temptations in every city an athlete stops into is one reason. Also, you can’t forget the whole gold digger portion of the equation--- “I love you honey, til the money stops flowing in.” Another huge reason that was also mentioned in the Times article is that when the athlete retires in his late 30’s, the wives have a very tough time dealing with the fact that he’s now home all the time. They have developed a routine of taking care of things while the athlete is on the road and now, there ‘Joe Quarterback’ is, sitting on the couch---scratching himself--- struggling with what to do with himself. They also miss the life of going to team functions and all the work that they do in the community while the athlete is active in his sport and with his team, and when it all comes to a screeching halt that early in life, it sometimes is too much to handle. It’s almost like they have to reacclimate themselves with each other after years of the athlete being on the road.
Does it work out this way for everyone who gets married while still being a professional athlete? No. Some couples make it work. However, if you talk to a lot of the couples that do make it work, I bet you’d find out that their struggles are ten-fold in comparison to us average joes trying to make it work. Bottom line to me, there’s plenty of time after your playing days to settle down and get married, I just never understood the rush. Even if you get the life under somewhat of control and by your early thirties you choose to get married while you're still playing---just experience what the crazy life of a pro athlete has to offer first and make sure you can handle it before jumping into marriage. The life is complicated enough as a professional athlete, why complicate matters more by hurting the one you supposedly love and the one you chose to marry, while you’re out there sleeping around and buying these women gifts left and right and in some cases actually treating them like your second or third wives? Why end up like some of these guys who just end up paying alimony and child support out of their collective asses, because they couldn’t stay faithful? Ninety-nine percent of us couldn’t stay faithful under the guidelines of life that a pro athlete lives under. Why take the chance? There’s plenty of quality years left for a professional athlete after retirement. Plenty.
Chuck Hanf
Two Cents From Beantown
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