Warren sapp's big mouth

I've heard about enough from Warren Sapp. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Sapp is one of the premiere defensive players in the National Football League. And the top players are justly rewarded. Sapp's salary is 6.6 million dollars a year. To put this salary in perspective, for a person earning $30,000 a year it would take them over 216 years to earn this much money, 108 years for a person making $60,000 a year, and 65 years for a person making $100,000 a year.

He has a Super Bowl Ring, a street named after him in his hometown, a black Mercedes with a vanity license plate that reads "QBKILLR," (that's quarterback killer for those of you who aren't football fans) a one-and-a-half million dollar home and his own television show, not to mention the additional salary he receives for product endorsements.

But Sapp is unhappy. He recently said in an interview on ESPN that the NFL owners and administrators are "slave masters" and that the entire system is designed to keep the players mired in anonymity while the league makes all the money. A pretty incredible thing to say based on the above mentioned assets that Sapp has. In addition, to his "slave master" comments, he has also found himself in hot water recently for verbally and physically confronting and abusing game officials, not to mention the cheap shot he put on a Green Bay player, Chad Clifton, last year that hospitalized Clifton with injuries severe enough that it was at first thought his NFL career was over. Sapp has not apologized for any of these incidents. Not to the public nor to the parties involved. With Sapp, it's always someone else's fault.

In addition, at the age of 30, he has fathered children with three different women including his wife. He denied paternity in the cases involving the two women he wasn't married to and was forced to submit to DNA testing which verified his parenthood. He hired the best attorneys in an attempt to avoid child support payments, including payments to the two children he and his wife had. She has divorced him after being married for five years. Despite the arguments presented by his attorneys, Sapp is now saddled with child support payments to three different women that totals over $400,000 a year. That sounds like a lot, but he makes that much in one month playing football in the NFL.

This is another example of the ridiculous pedestals we place celebrities and athletes on and the incredible patience and tolerance we show them, unlike the way we treat our neighbors and acquaintances. One of Sapp's major complaints was the NFL rule that requires players to keep their helmets on in the field of play. To Sapp's way of thinking, this produces the anonymity spoken of earlier because people can't "recognize" who the players are with their helmets on and this, according to Sapp, decreases their ability to market products and make additional money. In addition to the anonymity issue, Sapp played the race card by calling owners and league officials slave masters. It's amazing to me how some minority group members continue to complain about racism in this country and then use the race card themselves whenever they feel slighted.

Warren Sapp is a prima donna. He thinks he can do no wrong. He thinks he can behave outside societal rules and not be held accountable to them. He, like so many other celebrities, believes that the rules don't apply to them, unless they want to use the rules to their own advantage. Sapp needs a reality check. The rest of us are required to play the game within the confines of the rules, he should too. He is blessed to be talented enough to live a dream only a few ever get to experience, to enjoy the adulation of adults and children alike, and to earn a salary most of us cannot even conceive.

There comes a time in everyone's life when they need to count their blessings instead of complain about their shortcomings.

Sapp has reached that point.