On December 21st, 2009 two teammates on the Washington wizards both pulled guns on each other over a card game that the other didn’t pay up. The story has taken many turns in a month and a half. First it started with Gilbert Arenas just pulling an unlicensed pistol on teammate Javaris Crittenton saying that he didn’t pay up. Several days later of this story flying around ESPN, Gilbert Arenas was suspended by the NBA for making fun of the story with him making his hands into guns and pretending to shoot his teammates in a pregame celebration.
Later, Arenas faced a gun charge for having an unlicensed gun in the locker room and was facing up to five years in jail. Then it got even more twisted when it turned out that Javaris Crittenton had a gun too and pointed it at Arenas and threatened to shoot him in the knee if he wouldn’t pay up.
Now Arenas plead guilty for gun charge and is probably facing up to sixty days in jail. Well I asked that too, well nothing against him yet. Now to my main point in this essay, I don’t think that either one of them wanted the money because let’s face it, they’re both got their multi-million dollar contract, and their new cars and all that good stuff. No I think they did it for the publicity. They don’t just want to be the good point guard or the tall forward. They want a bad reputation that says “Hey I’m street, I’m a gangster, and I can do whatever I want.”

Before all of this our era of sports was Kobe, Shaq, Emmitt Smith and receiver Jerry Rice’s long career, for these guys it was all about winning. Now the sports nation has a new face, a face that has all cocky players on it. You’re thinking just Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco, no, now is for some reason the time for players to have their outbursts or rumors fly around in television, news papers, internet and radios. Like some childhood heroes, Serena Williams screaming at the line judge and saying “I’ll cram this ball down your throat, Tiger Woods having a sex addiction or like I talked about before, Gilbert Arenas and his gun. I mean they have to realize that they are heroes to children. This is an outrage and it will make kids think they can get away with any bad things when things don’t go their way.

Developed a sport skill and let it all go into their brain. Now I think in the








next ten years threatening a teammate or a referee will be big for several days and be forgotten. For instance, does anybody remember when Ron Artest led the Indiana Pacers to beat up fans after he and a Detroit Piston got in a trash talking fight, I mean come on, all the consequences led up to them losing money and suspensions. No players were suspended. And now it’s still not talked about as much. Our heroes are turning into monsters. It starts with over celebrating on the field, but ends terribly. We can stop players desecrating our sports by raising kids better than these players that think they’re can do whatever they want and still make the big bucks. But the commissioners need to step up the penal system in all sports instead of taking away one hundredth of their paycheck and suspending the player, they need to take away more. This is an outrage and it will make kids think they can get away with any bad things when things don’t go their way.