I’ve come to accept –albeit grudgingly–that no matter how much positive change I am capable of making I am simply never going to have even close to the life of a gifted athlete. Their G-d-given talent gives them a head start in every aspect of life–where they can go to school, who will employ them and what their upside earnings potential is. even who will willingly sleep with them. Those truisms are only enhanced if you happen to play football for the University of Southern California.
I offer up Mark Travis John Sanchez as Exhibit A. If you follow football, you’ve known about him for a while. He led the Trojans’ vaunted offense in 2008 at the peak of the hugely successful Pete Carroll coaching era, culminating with a season-ending Rose Bowl win over Penn State. That high profile a performance was eerily reminiscent of how one Joe Willie Namath concluded his college career at Alabama. That made him a natural fit for a number one draft pick of the perpetually inept New York Jets, a franchise Namath took from AFL mediocrity to champions of the entire pro football world within four seasons. And the way that Sanchez began his career in the Big Apple–or at least the New Jersey suburbs–actually eclipsed Namath’s beginnings. Back-to-back appearances in the AFC Championship game in his first two seasons for a franchise that had just six playoff appearances in the previous two decades–only one advancing as far as the league’s Final Four–actually gave justified hope that a beleaguered fan base denied a title since the Namath era might actually have had its prayers answered.
But just as quickly as this Roman candle burned it fizzled out even quicker, with a national Thanksgiving night audience tuned in to its nadir as the ever-trusty Wikipedia described:
In front of the home crowd of over 79,000 fans at MetLife Stadium …Mark Sanchez collided with the buttocks of his teammate, offensive lineman Brandon Moore, causing a fumble, which was then recovered by the Patriots’ safety Steve Gregory and returned for a touchdown. The play was the centerpiece of a disastrous sequence in the second quarter, wherein the Jets lost three fumbles and the Patriots scored three touchdowns in the span of 52 seconds of game time. In that second quarter, the Jets held the ball for over 12 minutes (out of a possible 15), but managed to be outscored 35–3.
The game and the infamous “butt fumble” in particular are remembered as the low point of the Jets’ 2012 season as the embarrassing loss was the team’s seventh of the 2012 season, all but eliminating them from earning a playoff berth. The butt fumble is often considered one of the most inept plays in NFL history and is also ranked as the most embarrassing moment in Jets history by ESPN.[2]
The balance of his Jets’ career was inglorious; his entire 2013 regular season was wiped out by a injury sustained in the crucial pre-season Snoopy Bowl against MetLife’s co-tenant Giants. That was reason enough for the Jets to cut bait who then shipped him off to Philadephia, where he began a second half of a shortened career as a journeyman that eventually saw ride the pines in Dallas and Washington to boot.
But despite that his pedigree–and the fact that the Jets have arguably fared even worse than he did since they were last together with nary a playoff appearance in what is now 15 seasons (and considering they are the NFL’s sole winless team five weeks into this campaign the odds are heavy that number will grow)–made him an ideal candidate to be hired by FOX Sports. After all, they’ve made a cottage industry of bringing in controversial click-bait analysts to supply their insights to worlds of imperfect and mostly less accomplished performers. Among the heretofore disgraced in baseball and football included Alex Rodriguez, Pete Rose and Urban Meyer. The noisier, the better. And give credit to Eric Shanks and his team–they know darn well that those being given second chances when so many others have snubbed their noses at them makes for really loyal employees.
Or so one would think. None of the others we’ve named were USC football players.
Which in hindsight may make what transpired in Indianapolis early last Saturday morning disturbing but not all that surprising. DEADLINE’s Patrick Hipes provided the sordid details Monday:
The alleged victim in an altercation early Saturday morning in Indianapolis in which Fox Sports analyst Mark Sanchez was stabbed has filed a civil suit against Sanchez and Fox Sports’ parent company Fox Corporation. The suit (read it here) was filed Monday in Marion (Ind.) Superior Court, just after the news that Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears had added a felony battery charge to three misdemeanors against Sanchez for the incident, in which the truck driver, Perry Tole, age 69, and Sanchez, age 38, fought in an alley between two Indianapolis hotels. The fight led to Sanchez being stabbed and Tole suffering “significant and very severe injuries,” Mears said today. Both were taken to different area hospitals; Sanchez was later arrested at his hospital.
Naturally, Sanchez’s fellow corporate colleagues couldn’t resist igniting this dumpster fire with additional “exclusives” such as those obtained by THE NEW YORK POST’s Steven Vago and Anthony Blair:
A bloody Mark Sanchez was seen staggering along the street clutching his wound after being stabbed in the side, dramatic new footage from the Saturday attack shows.
The former Jets quarterback, 38, is shown putting a hand on what appears to be a bloody wound, just below his chest as he walks down a street in Indianapolis, according to video obtained by The Post. Sanchez stumbled from an alleyway where the fight happened into a nearby bar, where the owner called paramedics. The Fox Sports analyst now faces upgraded felony charges after initially being rushed to the hospital in a critical condition following the incident.
He was previously charged on Sunday with several misdemeanors but, after new details were released about the extent of his victim’s injuries, as well as his age, prosecutors decided to charge Sanchez with a Level 5 felony battery of causing serious injury. If convicted, he faces up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Accounts from witnesses, the alleged victim and the police investigation all paint Sanchez as the aggressor, after the driver told cops he stabbed the retired pro athlete in self-defense. “This guy is trying to kill me,” the truck driver said he recalled thinking, according to a probable cause affidavit released on Sunday.
Surveillance footage collected by cops shows Sanchez jogging back and forth in an alley behind a bar… before approaching a box truck that was backing into a loading bay. The driver told police that Sanchez forced his way into the box truck and ordered him to move his vehicle, claiming to have spoken to the hotel manager. Confused, the driver, who had taken out his hearing aids due to the noise of the truck, leaned closer to try and hear Sanchez, and reported that his breath smelled of alcohol and he was slurring his words, according to the affidavit. Sanchez allegedly blocked the driver from calling his supervisor, before the fight broke out in the alley.
The legal specifics will assuredly play out in a court of law; suffice to say Sanchez’s side of the story will differ. There is always the spectre of opportunistic ambulance chasing on the part of Tole’s attorneys, especially now that FOX Sports has been added to their claim. After all, a graveyard shift worker pushing 70 toiling in the Midwest likely has a much less charmed life than a Southern California-based media personality–let alone those that (as of this writing) employ him. It is not my place nor intention to play judge nor jury in a situation like this; that’s way above my pay grade.
But what I can’t help but ask is that for someone who should be as grateful as Sanchez for even having the chance to be in Indianapolis on FOX’s dime what in G-d’s name possessed him to spend the Friday night before his assignment to imbibe and play neighborhood parking vigilante after midnight?
Wouldn’t he have been better off–and served his assignment better–by watching game footage of how Daniel Jones–another MetLife Stadium castoff quarterback–has resurrected his career for this year’s Colts, somehow tied for the league’s best record? Or maybe pursuing some angles from those now working with his former USC coach–currently the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders who were the Colts’ opponents for this past Sunday’s game–as to what he may not be doing that he once did when Sanchez was under his wing?
Or maybe he might have just curled up with a good book recently written by another one-time USC quarterback whose own pro career ended in premature ignominy? I offer Exhibit B as presented last month by USA TODAY’s Stephen Borelli:
Marv Marinovich was one of the original “worst sports fathers,” decades before the obsession with young athletes spilled over to social media, years before there was even an Internet. “I didn’t make it through a full tackle football season until high school,” Todd Marinovich, his father’s prodigy turned USC quarterback and Los Angeles Raiders first-round NFL Draft pick, recalls in his new memoir. “Why? Marv bodychecked my coaches when he disagreed with their decisions.”
His father, Marinovich told USA TODAY Sports, “did not miss a (expletive) practice in any sport I played, from youth until I went to SC.” The process of “letting go” has been cathartic. Marinovich met once a week with co-author Lizzy Wright. He shared his story of soaring to the NFL after his college sophomore year and his downward spiral out of it with drug abuse. He is at peace with “Marv,” the father he called by his first name.
What- a story about a former Raider and SC quarterback who has turned his life around wouldn’t have made for a decent conversation starter? Especially when the game Sanchez was supposed to analyze quickly devolved into a 40-6 shellacking in favor of the early Comeback Player of the Year candidates Jones and his Colts?
I simply will never understand how so many haves take on a level of entitlement and arrogance where they somehow think they are beyond reproach and even above the law. Not even try to take better advantage of the unique opportunities your lot in life has already given you. In Mark Sanchez’s case, it’s especially galling and almost tragic. It took him more than a decade to dissociate himself with the Butt Fumble and regress into relative anonymity. Now, it’s top of mind yet again and merely the second dumbest thing this former USC quarterback has done in his life.
On the other hand, he’s still doing a little better than one of their running backs did.
Until next time…