Former NBA player Latrell Sprewell is the kind of sports role model I can dig. I know, I know: I say all the time that our kids should not be looking up to athletes. Well, in Sprewell we have a good example for our kids… of exactly what NOT to do to get ahead in life.
Sprewell was a great ball-player: the Hood's choice because he was straight off the blacktop with it: he brought streetball sensibilities to the organized game, which I guess explains why his popularity increased after he famously choked his coach. That maneuver got him shuffled around the NBA where his talent ebbed and flowed, until he decided that he was too good to take a $21 million contract. I can dig that—I've walked away from money too, on principle. Like 15 bucks. But I had the kind of reputation as a talent and team player (yeah, I know) where I could get work elsewhere. Once you choke your boss or a workmate, you gotta know that going forward; your employment options will be limited. Isaiah Washington, take note: "Choke hold" is not a skill in demand.
There's some rumblings of a comeback, and by 'comeback,' I'm sure the pundits mean as a reality show wash-out or a guest on a very special Dr. Phil. I don't see a NBA career in Sprewell's future, but stranger things happen, although none come to mind just now.
Role models teach many lessons, and not all of them good ones. I believe some of the best role-models are people who succeed and then fail by their own hubris. They offer a lesson in what NOT to do. When you can make some rules, you can break some rules, and the take-home lesson with Sprewell is, the American Dream is yours to make or squander. You can write your own ticket: it's your choice. But when you choke your boss, your career's spinning around the toilet bowl and the repo man comes a-knocking, well, maybe you've made some bad choices. Sprewell famously said that his family couldn't eat off a paltry $21 mill.
I wonder how their eating now.
Did I get it wrong? What do you think the take-home lesson is?
