It’s always troubling when a professional athlete’s personal life becomes intertwined with events that happen on the field of play. Athlets are put in the spotlight on a nightly basis, and sometimes mistakes happen. Last Monday night, a fumbled kickoff return by the Buffalo Bills’ Leodis McKelvin led to the winning touchdown by Tom Brady and the Patriots. Local Buffalo hooligans (two misguided sixteen year olds) decided to take it upon themselves to paint the score and the words “learn to take a (expletive) knee” on McKelvin’s front lawn in the hours directly after the game.
The teens meant no harm, and McKelvin laughed it off. But there is no time where it is ok for a professional athlete’s personal life to be interrupted because of something that happened on the field. Many NFL players already feel like they are targets of violence because of their fame, wealth, and the death of Redskin Sean Taylor. They shouldn’t have to fear their own fans.
These kids don’t speak for the majority of fans; they made a mistake and were brave enough to fess up. McKelvin decided not to press charges and he and the Bills spent the week preparing to face the Buccaneers on Sunday in Orchard Park. Let’s just hope this eye opening act of foolish kids dissuades others from making bad decisions of their own in the future. And always remember that it’s only a game.
NBA: In honor of the NBA season just around the corner, I’d like to point out how hilarious Phoenix Suns’ Steve Nash is. Not only did he attempt to play a game of basketball in China in disguise a few weeks ago, but he’s a new pitchman for Vitamin Water. And, I do mean pitchman. The newest commercial has Nash hosting an infomercial. The infomercial and links tothe attempted disguise can be found below:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/kxZkaEge0R8" width="600" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]
Poorly Disguised Nash Joins Beijing Pick-Up Game
MLB: The Arizona Diamdback’s Mark Reynolds broke the season strikeout record last year. He whiffed 204 times in 152 games. He did hit 28 homer runs and had 97 RBI, but it’s never good if you strikeout more time than games you play, let alone have over 50 more strikeouts than games played. On average, Reynolds struck out almost one and a half times per game. That’s really bad. What’s worse is the fact that this season he has already hit the 200 strikeout mark with several weeks left to play. Double ouch.
The Odd: On the T.V. show “Shaq Vs.”, Shaq took on olympic swimmer Michael Phelps in an obvious competition. Shaq, being full of overflowing pride in his own abilities took on Phelps in a series of swimming competitions. Shaq won the first event, which surprised me even though Phelps had to swim a lot farther. Phelps ended up easily winning the competition, but Shaq showed great form for a seven foot giant. 
*Are you a fan of a sport that you want me to cover next week or know of any sports stories you want me to mention? This is your article, not mine. Have at it. Throw me an email – cosburn@thefatherlife.com.
Image credit: Kriss Szkurlatowski
30 year old freelance writer and The Father Life‘s resident beer columnist and sports editor. He also writes about fine beverages for drinkingmadeeasy.com and Chilled Magazine. On top of that, he writes about college and professional lacrosse for insidelacrosse.com. He’s also written for Genesee Valley Parenting Magazine, the Democrat and Chronicle Newspaper and ESPN.com. “Osburn on Tap” appears monthly in THE FATHER LIFE. For questions, comments, or if you have a story idea for Chris, throw him an email cosburn@thefatherlife.com. Also, follow him on twitter http://www.twitter.com/chrisosburn