Yesterday, during my lunch hour, KSYN 92.5's DJ was discussing Michael Phelps and he made a comment about how Snoop Dogg gets photographed doing drugs all the time and I lost it. While I'm not an Olympian or even an Olympic fan, I find the Olympic spirit and drive of these athletes to be just damn near divine. They spend years in training for a stupid little hunk of gold that means something to them, to their families, to their country. So, I don't laugh at it, I just basically ignore the Olympics and go on. Whatever floats your boat. I do sometimes watch the gymnastics simply because there is nothing else on, but that's about it. Oh, I do laugh at the runners too because sometimes their faces and lips contort to the most amusing configurations while they're running.
So, here's my opinion on the Phelps scandal:
Phelps spent years honing his skill. He earned 8 GOLD medals, if memory serves, he's received 14 total in the recent Olympics and 8 more in the 2004 Athens Olympics. He worked his ass off. He came home an American hero, an icon, and resumed life, returned to college. I don't know what happened, if he was bored, stupid, rebelling or what but he was at college party and took a hit out of a bong. Generally, I think drugs are stupid and I stand by this whole heartedly, but if you're 18 (Phelps is 23) and choose to do them that's your stupidity. Obviously he chose this path, and now Kelloggs, one of his endorsers, is chosing not to renew his endorsement contract because his behavior wasn't "consistent with the image of Kellogg". Now, supposedly he was not going to be re-signed because of a change in Kelloggs ability to use the Olympic rings in their advertising but they chose this time to publicaly separate from Phelps which to me was immature and I feel is terribly cowardly. Let's take the golden boy while he's hot but one screw up and let's drop him like he's got ebola. Keep in mind, folks, that Phelps had a record prior to Kelloggs endorsing him, he pled guilty to drunk driving in 2004 and received 18 months probation. So it's not like he was walking around with a spotless record prior to their signing him.
My final point is that no one is acknowledging whether or not he's passed a urine test since this drama began. Hello?! Is his piss clean now? If so, slack up already!! If not, shame on Kelloggs for not trying to get this young man into a treatment program.
I do believe that Kelloggs sugar laden cereals and other products won't be on my shopping list for some time.....
Subway and Omega (watches) are continuing their support and endorsement of Phelps and I think that's wonderful.
I do think that Columbia, South Carolina's local law enforcement needs to investigate this incident and pursue criminal charges against Phelps and anyone else at the party for use of a narcotic and for paraphenalia, etc.
Make the punishment fit the crime, folks.
