Hurd By The Bay

As the sports world reacts to the two-year sentence given former Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress on Tuesday, a question for all of you to contemplate:

What would’ve become of your life had you $2.1 million in your pocket --- GUAR-ON-TEED!! --- at age 16?

Excuse me while I think about my own life and shudder!

This, boys and girls, is our question today, because just as a Super Bowl hero with a daughter and family couldn’t handle his fame and fortune, neither, too, could a poor kid from the Dominican Republic who never really did a thing to earn it.

This Giant goes by the name Angel Villalona, and if you haven’t heard of him, don’t worry, you will. Villalona could turn out to be the first notable athlete in this sports-meets-entertainment-equals-unfettered-mess era to go down as a murderer. Even if he’s not convicted of the charges he faces in the death of 25-year-old Mario Felix de Jesus Velete, Villalona has shown himself incapable of making smart decisions.

And just to review: When a professional sports team is paying an athlete $2.1 million before he takes a step on a professional field, it's the athlete's responsibility to be smart and to be safe. If only teams gave money out based on clued-in vs. clue-less.

Then again, what should we expect?

When I was 16, I was ready to fly the nest, my parents knew nothing, I had all the skills necessary to navigate life and I made only wise decisions. I never drove fast, never did reckless things, never thought about what I said or to whom I said it and always assumed the sun would shine on my you-know-where the next day.

Guess I’m funny that way.

OK, back to reality. I think we’d all agree --- at least those of us who have lived a little --- that none of us really knows anything at 16, much less when were sidled with the responsibility that comes with $2.1 million. And especially were we sidled with the responsibility that comes with trying to lift an entire family out of the poverty in the Dominican Republic and other downtrodden environments from which more and more athletes come?

Don’t get me wrong. Some of us do understand by then that the world is not about us. Some of us would realize by then just what would come with gifts such as the ones Villalona possesses.

But most of us come into the world saying, “Mine, mine, mine,” and have not, by 16 figured out that life was not intended to be lived that way. With that selfishness comes a gigantic stage for doing some really dumb, life-ruining things.

Which is why the arrest of Villalona and the punishment of Burress really don’t have to be viewed as a “sad day,” as the football Giants termed it, but rather as a hopeful one. Burress represents a cautionary tale that star athletes really can go to jail, and Villalona is the living example of why nobody should get millions until they’ve “earned” their millions.

Too bad we’ve forgotten that somewhere along the way. Otherwise, Burress and Villalona probably would have much brighter futures.