By BRENT LANSDEN
This article originally ran on Oct. 13, 1988 in the Northwestern news.
Cocaine killed another athlete this week.
Atlanta Falcons special teams captain David Croudip was the latest victim Monday as the preliminary examination revealed that cocaine killed the 29-year-old.
Several thoughts went through my mind as I heard the news Monday evening.
I wondered when will this abuse of drugs end in sports?
I also wondered why these overpaid crybabies called professional athletes think they need to use cocaine.
Being a professional athlete would be better than being on top of the world. Why would anyone need a lift from there?
Sure there are pressures and sometime even hardwork, but it sure beats an 8-to-5 job and pays several times as much.
Perhaps the incident that sticks in my mind the most was the death of Len Bias, who was an outstanding basketball player for the University of Maryland signed by the NBA’s Boston Celtics only a few days before his cocaine-caused death.
Why does this happen to superstars often?
One of the reasons that it happens is because they literally have more money than they know what to do with.
Is it going to take more deaths to make those athletes realize that the stuff is dangerous or will they continue to abuse it?
I hope most athletes who depend on cocaine come to the conclusion that they don’t need it.
If not for them, hopefully they will do it for all the little kids who idolize them and the sportswriters who are tired of writing obituaries.
Somewhere there is a little boy who idolized Croudip, and now his mother and father have to try to explain the unexplainable about why he is gone.
I think there should be an easier way to teach a kid a lesson about drugs than having to lose a life.
But I don’t have an easy answer for the problem of drugs in sports.
And, obviously, neither did Croudip.