Inexcusable

There's something seriously wrong with this picture - and it keeps getting uglier and uglier.

Consider this for starters: A very high-profile professional athlete gets caught in an airport trying to carry a water bottle (which many people, including me, don't realize is illegal in this post-Sept. 11 age) onboard a plane. The bottle is seized. Authorities said it smelled like marijuana and they discovered a hidden compartment within the bottle.

Huh?

No marijuana was discovered, and the owner of the bottle says he used the secret compartment to carry jewelry.

Huh?

There's more.

The same high-profile athlete has his own myspace.com Web page with a picture of himself holding a blunt, or marijuana cigarette.

OK, so he - and perhaps his family - may not be the sharpest tools in the shed. A few years ago, his high-profile brother was kicked off his college team because of marijuana problems.

But trouble keeps finding Michael Vick.

He was scheduled to make a court appearance last week in a trespassing-while-fishing case. That's no big deal.

He was named in a sordid lawsuit that compared to the Duke lacrosse team scandal. The case was settled out of court. Who knows what actually happened? It very well could have been similar to the fictitious claims regarding the Duke lacrosse team.

He was filmed flipping off fans while walking off the field after a loss. Should anyone care about that? Stupid obnoxious hecklers cause more displeasure for onlookers than a middle finger. Still, Vick is going to be held to higher standards because parents don't want their children replicating athletes' wrongdoings.

So he's made some mistakes. Big deal. Everybody makes mistakes. But last week's discovery is inexcusable and should be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Police conducting a drug investigation were led to a house owned by Vick.

Huh? Weird.

But what they found was uglier than drugs.

More than 60 dogs were found in three buildings. Some were malnourished, scarred and injured. Police also found items associated with dog fighting.

But Vick did not live in the house. His nephew did.

So he shouldn't be scrutinized, right?

Come on folks. Smell the coffee. We're paying professional athletes absurd amounts of money for our entertainment - absurd amounts. So much that they don't even care, or know, where some of it ends up. Seriously, what's an average 20-something-year-old American going to do with newly acquired money?

The answer isn't the scary part. The scary part is the people who surround the moneymakers whose forte is not making money.

Maybe it's time to start cracking down on the real money makers who shell out the dough - the owners. Maybe it's the owners who ultimately should be responsible for where their money ends up. Because, ultimately, it's the players who reflect the franchise.

Something needs to be done. Owners need to be responsible for educating athletes on money management if they're going to pay them so much.

This world is ugly enough with ignorant people. We don't need to make it worse by giving them $23 million a year to entertain us.

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Carl Hennell is a sports reporter at the Daily Inter Lake. He can be reached by e-mail at chennell@dailyinterlake.com or at 758-4446.