Although this story about Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie from the sports pages of the Herald casts the problem as one that is special with black athletes whose fathers are absent, the writer has this to say about both white and black players in the NFL:
[A] recent Sports Illustrated report [states] that 78 percent of NFL players, white and black, are either broke or divorced within two years of retirement . . .
What we have seen in our community, as our children grew up and moved through sports programs at school and in clubs, is that the gifted athlete gets a pass. That athlete grows up thinking that whatever rules there may be, they do not apply to him. There are, then, a lot more adults than biological fathers in the lives of such children who are as good as absent morally, because they fail to exercise leadership and discipline. Those fathers are the child's teachers, school administrators, and coaches, the journalists who report on them, and the fan culture through which the child moves as he grows up, a "village," to coin a phrase, no doubt full of Christians.
(And, by the way, Tiger's father was hardly absent.)
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