This morning I heard something a little disturbing on the radio.

As I was listening to a prominent sports talk radio program I heard one of the hosts tell his co-host that (and I’m paraphrasing here) ‘football players deserve every dime that they are paid because they go through all of the pain and bruising of a training camp, the regular season and post-season, sometimes playing very hurt but ignoring the pain.’

I had to take a moment to soak all of that in. On the surface, upon hearing this comment, it seemed to be just one guy sucking up to a former athlete and pandering to him in order to swell up both of their egos. And then I rewound my brain and re-listened to this comment from the digital audio chip I had implanted in my head some months back.

After doing this I became just a little put off about the sheer absurdity of the statement.

I’m not entirely sure I can put into words just how irritated I was at these comments. But I’ll try…

By this commentators rationale, athletes are very deserving of the dollars that they are paid because they can play a game well and sometimes do so with pain. Apparently by his reasoning, these people are providing a very valuable service to the country that makes everything better. Apparently, because they are talented athletes they deserve to make millions of dollars purely by putting their bodies through some tough physical workouts.

Now, don’t get me wrong and I am not bashing on sports, spend more than five minutes around me and you’ll recognize just how much I love sports. I’ve watched, played or coached them for the vast majority of my life. I would have loved to been a good enough athlete to play a sport at the collegiate level or even higher. I love to talk sports and to this day I still ponder various coaching schemes that I would run. If the opportunity ever arises for me to get back into coaching, I would take it in a heartbeat because I miss it nearly every day and still enjoy diagramming plays and practice plans just for my own amusement.

But to insinuate that these athletes are ‘deserving’ of this money simply because they put themselves through some physical torment from time to time is absolutely ludicrous.

Let us take a look at why…

These guys and gals that play professional sports literally give nothing to the society. They give nothing. I’ll say that again…they give nothing useful to society because all they do is play a game for entertainment. Yes they entertain us on a weekly basis by doing things that most of us cannot do. But if everyone of them were to disappear tomorrow, life would go on. We would find other sources of entertainment such as books, talking with friends or watching local sporting events. And there would probably be a herd of guys and gals that look just like them who would step up and entertain us just the same.

To put it another way…what would happen if all the teachers, doctors, farmers, etc were to disappear tomorrow? These people grow food, take care of us, teacher our youth and provide other important services for us.

Are they not much more important to the world than these pro athletes?

Because they aren’t on television or being hyped by the vile four letter word ‘ESPN’ they are deemed of less consequence.

And don’t tell me that doctors, teachers, farmers, etc don’t put in their hours as well and many times do so while no feeling at their physical best. They may go to work while sick or injured or having problems in their own lives but they do so nearly every day with no thoughts of getting a pat on the back or having people thinking they are amazing. They do so because that is what they want to do. Not because of the money or the glory.

Doctors, nurses and other medical personnel can be on call for days or weeks on end and have the lives of many people in their hands every day. And while some of those people may be making a decent chunk of change there is always the chance of a lawsuit by somebody for a slight they may have experienced, whether it be real or perceived.

Teachers spend eight hours at a school, then they may coach another few hours, then they get to go home and grade papers, plan the next day’s worth of education material and probably read up on topics to keep themselves at the highest level of knowledge they can.

Farmers may spend almost two thirds or more of a day in the fields as the plant, spray and harvest, just so that we can conveniently wander down to a grocery store and pick up some food to eat.

And what do all of these people get?

Doctors, nurses and other medical personnel are seem by some as ignorant or money grubbing medical hacks that are less informed than Wikipedia or the Interweb.

Teachers are given no credit when a student does well (because obviously in the minds of the parents the student was already gifted and the teacher is probably holding them back) but all of the blame when a student fails (because obviously the teacher has to be a moron, give no mind to the fact that the student might be lazy or just a pain in the ass).

Farmers are seen by some as people that just ride a tractor around all day and then collect money from the government just to wear a pair of overalls.

And I forgot one of the more important groups of underappreciated people…Soldiers.

What do these people provide us? Well, let us take a look. They put their lives on the line nearly every time they go on tour. They have put their own safety aside for the safety of our country. Whether you agree with the conflicts our country is and has been involved in is not my decision to make. But if you don’t appreciate and respect and revere the sacrifices these men and women make then you are a person that should no longer or start breeding.

Every day I wake up I think of a friend of mine who is overseas at the moment and all I think about at times is him getting home, mostly for his family to see him again, but also in a little more selfish note I want to see the guy again and hang out with him to cause trouble.

And what do soldiers get for selflessly putting their lives on the line? The occasional protest of their actions, even when they are doing what they are told to do and doing what is meant to be in the best interest of the country. They get

Yet we hype and defend pro athletes making millions of dollars to play a game when many of us are merely trying to make it through another week of paying bills and stocking our fridges with food.

Oh, the horror for these poor athletes. When they squabble over a contract that might pay them $5,000,000 a year rather than $5,500,000 a year we are expected to side with them because sports networks tell us we should. How can a person possibly be expected to survive without that extra $500,000 dollars? Without that extra money they couldn’t afford that third Mercedes. And how can you go on without that?

And to make matters even more fun, I read this morning that a player making $13,000,000 this year will be fined $2500 for his role in brawl the other night. To me, $2500 is a ton of money and seems like a lot but when put into perspective, this fine is the same as a person making $50,000 a year being fined $9.62. Ouch. The pain he must be feeling right now.

Anyway, that whole comment just kind of set me off for a bit.

Like I said, sports is something that I have always enjoyed and will always continue to enjoy. But to insinuate that they ‘deserve’ all of this money is ludicrous. Once again, they play a game for entertainment, not for the betterment of the world or society. I’m sure we’d all find a way to move on if professional sports were to disappear. Perhaps the next time one of these athletes is bickering about an extra $500,000 or so, they should remember that there are a lot of us out there that would be happy and able to get by on a fraction of their salaries.

This is Pete…

Over and out.