«ATHLETES ARE GOING TO BE THE NEW MEDIA STARS» (ONE OF MY PAST ARTICLE)

"Sex, itself, is not a problem. What really affects an athlete are the drinking and the lack of sleep that sometimes go with sex".

Pelé

— Sex and the sports jock! Nothing better to get the media going. Today, it's almost automatically assumed that athletes (especially professionals ones) can get as much sex as they want. Jason Williams, the ex-NBA star, once said that, basically, the guys in the NBA were no more sex addicts than your average Joe working at IBM; it was just a lot easier for them. As for the ex NBA bad boy, Dennis Rodman, he once commented, "Sex is 50% of the life in the NBA. Money is the other 50%."

Whether one is Black, Latino or white, the groupie experience and the opportunity for easy sex is universal -- if you're a pro athlete. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. Actually, research shows that the more one is at the top of his career -- be it in politics, sports or art -- the more likely it is that person has a very strong sex drive. The great Wilt Chamberlain still holds the record for the most points in one basketball game (100). And, as it has been notoriously reported, he was far from being a eunuch. Picasso, arguably, the greatest artist of the last century, throughout his life, routinely visited brothels and had many, much younger wives. Hollywood, today, is the worldwide capital of entertainment and its citizens are among the richest and the most powerful. Is there somebody out there who still doesn't know that Hollywood is "50% about sex and 50% about money?"Of course, some excesses are not acceptable. No more than certain kinds of behavior. But, there's a big difference between a respectful jock with a healthy sex drive and another athlete who gets into trouble because of sexual harassment.Today, many would like to see successful athletes more politically inclined. Some in the public would like the athletes to take a position and make a social statement à la Muhammad Ali. But it would be good to remember that a social statement is not only in the strict political meaning of the word. As well, we too often forget that declarations about sex could be quite political. When Dennis Rodman said that he didn't care if other people thought he was gay, it was a social statement. When he said that white women want to date black guys because they think the sex is going to be better, it was a social statement against existing political correctness.

Everybody knows groupies are around every stadium and arena. How does it work exactly? In one of my favorite sport books, "Loose Balls," Jason Williams give us an indication: "Next time you watch a pro basketball game, watch us talking during the layout drills. [You can] see us sometimes looking in the stands. What's happening is the players are seeing if they spot a woman they might want to meet. If they do, most of the time, they send a ball boy over. The ball boy goes over says, 'Here's a pass. Meet so and so at the gate after the game.' And, yeah, almost every time, they show up."