Part of being a sports fan is that you get to follow your favorite teams and that you will probably idolize sports athletes at some point in your life. When you are younger, there is nothing that your Famous Sports Star Arrests cannot do and they seem to be the most incredible people on Earth. Unfortunately, when you get a little bit older you realize that everybody is fallible.
The routine of a sports fan involves watching your team (hopefully) win every week, reading the newspaper and sites to keep up to date with all the trade rumors every offseason, and maybe even filling in a betting slip now and again to put your money where your mouth is backing your team. But sports athletes can also feature on pages other than the sports section.
There have always been athletes that have fallen foul of the law and we thought we would take a look at some of the more memorable instances when the worlds of sports and crime combined. The most famous was probably the case of O.J. Simpson – but here are five others you might remember.
Michael Vick
Entering the NFL as the number one pick overall in the 2001 Draft, Michael Vick heralded a new style of double-threat quarterback that football fans have now gotten very used to. To prove just how gifted Vick was at sports, he was also selected in the 30th round of the MLB Draft in 2000 even though he had not played baseball since the eighth grade.
Pro football fans were eagerly awaiting his arrival in the NFL – and Vick did not disappoint. He became the first QB to rush for over 1,000 yards in a season and played in three Pro Bowls before his world came crashing down. In 2007 he pleaded guilty to involvement in a dog fighting ring and was jailed for 21 months. He did continue to play on his release – and even made it to another Pro Bowl – but never fulfilled that early promise.
Darryl Strawberry
One of the most feared sluggers in Major League Baseball during the 1980s, Darryl Strawberry is one of only a few players who is still well-loved by both Yankees and Mets fans in New York City. He is better known as a former Met though and was a major factor in that franchise winning the World Series in 1986.
But Strawberry’s antics away from the ballpark are just as legendary as the home runs he hit during his playing career There are plenty of stories about this athlete but he spent 18 months in jail for cocaine possession in 1999 after violating the terms of his probation concerning another charge. He now provides guidance on substance abuse issues.
Naseem Hamed
For a while, it seemed as if this British boxer was going to take the world by storm. He won a legion of fans for his flamboyant performances and extravagant ring entrances – once arriving for a bout with the help of a “flying carpet”. He won multiple titles and was the featherweight champion of the world.
But he sullied his reputation in 2006 when he was sent to jail for driving offences. Hamed had retired in 2002 but was still a big name in the boxing and celebrity worlds, so his arrest was big news. He served 16 weeks for dangerous driving when he crashed his car into another vehicle, apparently causing the other driver to break almost every major bone in his body.
Patrick Cote
Hockey loves a bad boy and the sport is full of hard players willing to do anything to help their team win the game. But Cote’s image on the ice was seemingly not just a show for the fans. His performances as an enforcer may have made him a favorite with those watching the Dallas Stars and the Nashville Predators in the late 1990s. But it was what happened away from the arena that landed him in big trouble.
In 2002, Cote was stopped by police in New York who found drugs in his car. He pleaded to a lesser charge and escaped jail time. But he was not as lucky with another encounter with the law. After being stopped driving a stolen car in Montreal in 2014, Cote admitted to robbing two banks and spent 30 months in prison for his deeds.
Some athletes are still loved by the fans even after their legal troubles
Pete Rose
As one of the prominent members of “the Big Red Machine”, the Cincinnati team that dominated the National League during the 1970s, Pete Rose had plenty of Major League Baseball fans cheering him on at the plate. He was known as a hitter and for his speed around the bases that helped the team do so well.
But Rose was also notoriously well known for his activities away from the diamond. As with many of sport’s bad boys, there are numerous instances of Rose clashing with the law for one reason or another. But it is his five months detention for tax evasion that earns his place on our list after he failed to show his income received for signing autographs after he retired.
