Consider this your laugh for the night. Matt Taibbi, who writes hard stuff for Rolling Stone, also writes jock stuff for Men's Journal. He's just published his article "The Jock’s Guide to Getting Arrested." From the intro:
For most American men, this time of year means the kickoff of NFL training camp — the start of the New Year on the couch-potato sports calendar. But for me it’s a sad time. It’s the end of Arrest Season.Taibbi offers six "rules" to getting arrested the "right" way. Here's the first one: Make sure you don't suck.
In terms of jock crime sprees, no other stretch rivals late June and July. . . . this is the only time of the year when rookies and veterans from three of America’s four major professional sports leagues are free to really relax and enjoy life — the last chance they’re going to have to get double-Tasered in fights with nightclub security guards or buy alcohol for pairs of under-17 girls in the sleazy hotels of Covington, Kentucky, or ride around on a three-wheeled motorcycle with a pistol in a pant leg and a shotgun in a guitar case.
Before you go out and start committing crimes, it’s important to first make sure you’re at least slightly better than the 30 or 40 guys the team’s assistant GM could instantly pull off some practice squad to replace you. Otherwise you will become fodder for the team’s zero-tolerance discipline policy. . . . Take defensive back Willie Andrews, a seventh-round Patriots pick who barely played and sucked when he did. Two days after the disastrous 2008 Super Bowl loss to the Giants that he did absolutely nothing to prevent, he was caught driving around in an unregistered Crown Vic with a half-pound of weed. Four months after that, right smack in the middle of Arrest Season, he got pinched for allegedly waving a gun at his girlfriend’s head. Unamused, Bill Belichick sent a strong zero-tolerance message by cutting Andrews the very next day. Meanwhile, ultra-awesome Pats cornerback Ty Law was arrested twice — once for muling some E across the Canadian border (he skated on that) and once for a bizarre 2004 traffic incident in Miami that culminated in the ultimate arrest-related shame for an NFL skill-position player: getting caught in a foot chase by a policeman. Despite all this, Law was kept on the roster for another year — perhaps because he was the only guy on the team who could cover Marvin Harrison.For fans of jock adventures, the piece is a hoot on skates. All six rules are fun, but be sure to catch Rule 2: Don't commit weird crimes.
Nice reading for a warm summer night.
GP
