Dork

If you've got yourself a chance to be the top receiver on one of the premier collegiate football teams in the country, how do you conduct yourself during the semester just before you graduate high school?

Why, you carry a stolen handgun onto your school campus, of course.

What the heck goes through the minds of these student-athletes when they do dumb stuff like this? On the one hand, you've got the shot at a pro career which could make you wealthy beyond your whole hometown's wildest dreams. You could finally play your sport and make money for yourself instead of your coach and AD. On the other, you've got a jacket. Or a few thousand dollars from your part-time job. Or some money from a drug dealer. Or drugs themselves -- and there's no way to link to all those stories without overloading Blogger. Yes, I know Mary Anne did it. But if Mary Anne jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff, too?

So which should you do? Satisfy the short-term desire or exert all your self-control to behave like a civilized, law-abiding person for four years? Maybe only two or three. Is it as mundane as thinking that you won't get caught, just like every other moke who tries to five-finger discount a bottle of malt liquor from QT? Or is it worse? Do you somehow believe that walking into school with a stolen handgun won't cause that college coach who courted you like a prom date to drop you like he would a smelly cow pie?

TV has more sports channels than ever before, offering viewers more sports viewing choices than ever before. The problem is digging through all the high-profile, high level competition to find people you can watch without thinking, "Wonder who his parole officer is?"