When Will These Football Players Learn?

Ben Roethlisberger is in the news again for problems with the police over an alleged sexual assault charge.  Last year he was accused by a woman of an incident in 2008 at Lake Tahoe.  Charges were dropped but Ben ended up paying the woman $100,000 and issuing a public apology.  Now there will be plenty of opinions on both sides of this one and I’ve got one as well.Let me start by saying I am not putting it out there that Big Ben is guilty on this charge.  But I keep wondering when professional athletes are going to learn not to put themselves in situations that set them up.  Let’s say that Ben is not guilty in this situation.  What is a 28 year old professional football player doing hanging out in bars in a college town with a 20 year old college kid?  That just doesn’t make sense to me.

If you believe the argument that there are people out there who will target athletes, celebrities, etc, then it seems to me that these people have to be smarter about where they hang out and who they hang out with.

Now Ben may be guilty, I don’t know.  But I do know that  I have seen where celebrities and professional athletes end up being accused of something, and part of the problem was that they put themselves in a situation that just carried a lot of risk.   Especially considering that they are well known and rich.

Don’t get me wrong here.  I am not blaming Ben or anyone else who might end up being wrongly accused or in a situation where someone is just trying to get money.  But I do know that if you put yourself in certain situations, you are much more likely to end up where you don’t want to be.  That may sound judgmental.  I don’t mean for it to be, but when I read about these situations, I just keep shaking my head.