Imagine being 17 years old and having millions of people hanging on your decisions. Imagine being a physical specimen at an early age, so much so that your abilities are the topic of everyday discussion for many grown men. Your picture is everywhere. Signs are made with your name on them. And it is not uncommon for you to hear tens of thousands of people shouting your praise.
The only distinction between you and the common man is that you can play the game better. The game gives and allows liberties that most will never know. And you are one of the very few who regularly experience the intoxicating surge of public praise.
You are an athlete in the 21st century - the height of human experience and the object of everyone's worshipful attention. With very little regard for who you are, it seems as if everyone loves you for what you are. The only problem is you are not mature enough to know the difference.
Even as a baby, the beer was in your bottle. As soon as you could grab a ball, you heard things like, "You're gonna be a football player one day." You also learned from a very early age that this must be your goal in life if you are to excite your father's attention at all. He screams for those players on television; but when you come home from school with an "A", all you get is a pat on the back. It just makes sense. Your survival lies in the game.
And you finally make it. You sign on with a division-I ball team and do well enough to make it on draft day. You've always heard that this is all you need to retire. The checks have started, surely they will never stop. You've been a player all of your life. You are bigger than life. It will never end. Again, you have made it.
Self-control is something that you were never taught. Those liberties you received as a star athlete have served only to cripple you for the responsibilities of manhood. So you run back to the game, and surround yourself with others who seek their refuge in the game as well. Clothes, cars, homes and jewelry fill the void you are now noticing - but only for a little while.
There is something deep inside of you saying, "I have made it. Why am I still searching?" You answer by holding on tighter. Game day is not too far away. Everyone will love you tomorrow.
Two years fly by. They are a blur. The next star in line starts nudging you out of the way. He's better than you and you know it. Things that you have done and possessions that you have bought are now responsibilities that linger over your head day and night. There was a time when you got a check. Now you need the check. Once you caught life, now life is catching you.
Then it happens. You're done. Whether by injury or whatever, you are forced into retirement. The checks have stopped. The praise on Sundays is over. Liberties have been replaced by liabilities. The doors of freedom are now slammed shut. In a matter of days, you are a nobody. A has-been. Now people begin paying attention to who you are rather than what you are. You are now old enough to feel the difference. And it hurts. It hurts bad.
From the beginning of your life, sports were your life. Now sports are gone. The logic isn't very difficult to follow. Life is not worth living anymore. I can only imagine this may very well be the story of O.J. Murdock and others like him. Behind all of the muscle, speed and talent lies a boy who was never taught how to be a man. He was never warned about life outside of the sport. And when life catches him, he has no where to turn but to end himself. This is nothing short of tragedy.
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