Every year, at some rookie symposium, some football elder stands before the crowd and tells his tale of woe. From Hollywood Henderson to Pac Man Jones to Ryan Leaf, there’s ample parables from which these young bucks can draw some knowledge.
Henderson used to stuff cocaine into his thigh pad. Pac Man had a rap sheet longer than the Magna Carta. Leaf wasted his epic talent, lost his career, then his mind, breaking into houses to support his painkiller habit.
You’d think these lives of danger, of neglect, of insanity, would drip down into the eager minds of young men.