Addicted to Controversy, how Several Types of Addiction Ruined or Damaged a Person’s Reputation
Many stories in Jackie MacMullan’s The Best American Sports Writing 2020 have certain themes or life lessons we are taught at a young age. However, some of the stories collected in this series are centered around scandal, crime and addiction. There are stories about thief, breaking trust and sex trafficking
In Steven Leckart’s The Bicycle Thief, Tom Justice was not only a drug addict, but an addict of bank robbing. After his dreams of becoming an Olympic cyclist became bleak, he needed money in other ways.
He was not earning jobs to live, so he did what he had to do. On a list of career choices, he put “B.R.,” meaning bank robber. It was a last resort, but once he started, he couldn’t stop.
It was an addiction. Every time he robbed a bank, escaped, got away with it and plotted his next one, an adrenaline rush took over him.
Robbing addiction eventually turned into drug addiction. Justice started to smoke crack and use ecstasy.
His bank robbing addiction did not wane though. It took four years for Jackson to be caught, and over that span, he stole almost $130,000.
His life is seemingly normal and low-profile now. After being released in 2011 after 11 years in federal prison, he now works at a doughnut shop and still practices cycling. Despite having trouble landing employment, Justice said he doesn’t know what made him rob banks in the first place.
Justice did suffer from drug addiction at one point, but so did former NFL offensive lineman Jeff Hatch. Chris Ballard details Hatch’s struggle in Fumbled Recovery.
Jeff’s dad, Paul, suffered from a career-ending back injury. After Jeff suffered from a herniated disc that required surgery, his athleticism disappeared, and he put the pads down after a short NFL career.
His career aftermath is one that a lot of football players unfortunately suffer from. He became addicted to painkillers. Even as a player, he traded Giants tickets for pills.
Many NFL critics say the NFL does not do a good enough job of helping players who become addicted to pain killers. Players can use them like water to numb any pain so they can suit up on Sundays to delight millions of fans, but after their playing days, they sometimes can’t stop using pills.
Eric Spofford runs an addiction treatment center. He met Jeff when he was detoxing and thought a former NFL player would be perfect to represent his program.
Unfortunately, Spofford was wrong about Hatch. Hatch relapsed and then started to run an illegal drug ring. Vice President at the time Mike Pence was supposed to visit Spofford to talk about the opioid epidemic the U.S. faces, but if he did, he would’ve met Hatch, a man who according to Politico, “was under investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration for moving more than $100,000 of fentanyl from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.” Hatch is supposed to be sentenced on Nov. 6.
Not only is there a story about money trafficking and drug trafficking. Patriot Act by May Jeong tells the story about human trafficking.
In the summer of 2018, there was suspicion of a prostitution ring, notably at Orchids of Asia Day Spa. One of the most infamous customers was New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Kraft went in for what he initially though was a massage but got a hand job instead. He went back to Orchids the next day before flying to Kansas City later that afternoon to see his team in the AFC Championship Game against the Chiefs.
The Patriots owner has the money. He has billions of dollars, but Jeff Greene, a Palm Beach man who ranks 232nd on the Forbes list of richest Americans, said he can’t understand why Kraft would do such a thing.
What also makes this interesting is after Kraft’s wife Myra died in 2011, he started an on again off again relationship with aspiring actress Ricki Noel Lander, who is thirty-eight year younger.
One can assume Kraft enjoyed a position of power and being provider. These sex workers needed money, but with a woman already in Kraft’s life, he did not have a reason to be involved with this prostitution ring, which raises the question, what came over him that he had a need for this in the first place.
Kraft and Hatch’s stories should be told by a documentary. Kraft’s situation is so unprecedented that the story needs to be told on the investigation and why people think Kraft did what he did. Hatch’s story is a lot more common and should be involved in a documentary about NFL players’ problems after their careers.
Justice’s story sounds like a great drama or action movie. The crime spree he went on would make for entertainment in the box office. The film could be made based off a true story.