A few days ago, Jovan Belcher, a Kansas City Chiefs football player,  committed a murder-suicide. He killed his wife and himself, leaving his 3 year old child as an orphan. After Jovan killed his wife, he went to the Chiefs practice facility and shothimself in front of the head coach and th GM. In less than 2 hours after the incident, the Chiefs and the NFL decided that they would go on with the game. That's right, they decided to play the game literally right after the incident. In my personal opinion, this is utterly ridiculous. How do you decide to play a football game hours after your starting linebacker killed himself and his wife? This wasn't some car accident or something that wasn't doneon purpose. This was a willingful act of violence, one that rocked the Kansas City community and locker room.

My point is that football should not be bigger than life. Yes, it is the most popular sport in America. However, the NFL deciding to play the game so soon must pose a question to their motives. I heard some people rationalize this decision by saying that playing a game after the death of a player or family member is good for the grieving ones because it is something that can pull everyone together and help mourn. Fasle. While this may be true in some situations, this one is completely different. The Chiefs player was not the only one to die. He killed his wife and devastated a community. This game should have been canceled. Deciding to play it proves that society values football over life. In a tragedy such as this one, the game should have been cancelledto allow everyone to appropriately grieve.

Canada just got better at baseball...a lot better. The Miami Marlins gave an early Christmas present to the Toronto Blue Jays a few weeks ago. They literally sent all of their best players to Canada in one of the biggest firesales in the history of the game. They sent 120 million dollars worth of players to the Blue Jays in exchange for their 2nd, 5th, and 7th best prospects. Basically, they traded their best players for nothing. Among those traded were household names such as Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buerhle. Many fans seem to forget that this firesale started during the middle of the year. Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez, Omar Infante, and Randy Choate were all dealt before the trading deadline. This comes at a time when Marlins management promised the city of Miami that they would stop being thrifty when a new stadium was built. The owner of the Marlins, a wealthy art dealer named Jeffrey Loria, used mostly taxpayers money to finance the new stadium that was built in Miami. He always makes money by owning the Marlins because he keeps revenue higher than the cost of the team, no matter what the situation. In this case, he cut payroll from 111 million to 40 million. That's a 71 million dollar profit for the greedy Loria. Owners need to be held responsible by Major League Baseball for injustices such as this, or at least fired. Then again, when you're in charge, it's hard to fire yourself.

My favorite Thanksgiving sports story does not have to do with watching any proffesional or college games on TV. In fact, it was a pick up football game from just a few years ago. As you probably already know, these games can get intense. It was a two hand touch football game with 4 downs and 8 players. These games start out innocently, with the quarterback passing to the little kids and everyone letting them run for touchdowns. Once the real game starts, it gets super competitive. My team consisted of a neighbor my age, aunt, 5 year old cousin, and me. The other team was my dad, grandpa, uncle, and my cousin's 4 year old friend.

The game was tied and we were at the point where the next touchdown was the winner. We had the ball and it was 4th and about 5 yards until the touchdown. I was the quarterback and had until 7 mississippi to throw. I dropped back, looked at my neighbor, and realized he was double covered. My aunt was also covered very well and there was no way she was going to catch the ball anyways. That left my cousin wide open in the corner of the end zone. Now, I had played catch with him before the game and he pretty much only caught the ball if you threw it underhand and right to him. This time, I threw it overhand and a little to his right. He moved over and miraculously caught the ball. We all celebrated and tackled him in victory. It was awesome.

The best Thanksgiving memory that I have had came last year. We got 20-30 family and friends together at my Uncle's house and had a great time. I got to see my grandparents, cousins, uncle, aunt, and close friends all at the same time. It was a mixture of about 3 or 4 families all together. I think it is better this way because you never get bored. Usually, it would be 7-8 family members and it was nice to see everybody, but I got bored pretty quickly. Last year, with all the people, there was never a dull moment. We played many sports, such as football, wiffle ball, and kickball. It got competitive and was very fun.

The Thanksgiving day dinner a year ago was definitely the best. There was so much food that there was probably leftovers that could feed a small nation. Apparently, it took my Uncle and his immediate family months to finish it all. Going back to the sports that we played, I think it was a good bonding experience for everyone involved. Especially team sports, where you haveto work together. I got to know a lot of people from the other families a lot better. Even the people that can't or don't want to play can have fun watching their families play. This Thanksgiving was memorable because I felt like it was the most fun.

Opposition of paying college athletes.

This is a highly debated topic, which has many facts for both sides. Athletes should not get payed until they reach the proffesional level. If we start paying college athletes, it will turn into a business. What's next, paying high school athletes? There's a reason that no amateur athletes around the United States gets payed. It is actually illegal. There are laws in place, as well as ncaa laws that prohibit this. Also, how would the money be spread out? Would you give an equal amount of money to each college athlete? There are thousands of college footballs players alone. If you started paying football players, then you would also have to the other sports too. This includes women's water polo, golf, and other sports that are considered to be unpopular. It would result in lawsuits and cause chaos across the world of sports. College athletes already get huge amounts of money in the form of scholarship, housing, and food. That is more than enough. If you started paying these athletes, I guaranttee that many of them would spend it on marijuana/drugs. The process would be way too complicated and would take away from the college experience of these athletes. Also, it would take away from the school spirit. The athletes would stop focusing on their schoolwork and more on money, which could impair their playing abilities as well.

Sports and politics regularly intertwine, but one major issue has been taken to Congress and that is doping. Whether it is baseball, cycling, or an olympic sport, Congress has made athletes swear under oath that they didor did not use performance enhancing drugs. An example of this is Roger Clemens. The BALCO investigation went through many famous athletes, and included the names of stars around Major League Baseball. The government was running an inestigation on a drug distributer, which made thesefamous athletes take the stand. Many of them lied under oath.

Rafael Palmero and Roger Clemens were two famous athletes that lied under oath. However, Clemens got off free on the technicality that his trainer would not give him up. Politics plays a role because they decide who to investigate and what laws are made to prevent these athletes from doping. So far, they are way behind on anti-doping policies and fail to actually reprimand most of the athletes. Some athletes, such as Barry Bonds, ended up in jail for a while, but they tend to go after the high profile athletes only.

One thing that I have been following is the rise and decline of Eagles QB Michael Vick. It made me really mad when he got out of jail for dogfighting and every single analyst started saying how good ofa person he was now. There were many features done on Vick that described him as an angel that did charity events and spoke to children. Here's my take on it: He only "changed" for the money. At the height of the Michael Vick hype, he had earned 100 million dollars over a 7 year period. Analysts seem to forgive athletes when they start doing good and ignore them when they suck. When Vick startedplaying poorly, there were no features done on how he has changedas a person.

Also, while I am on the topic of forgiveness, athletes get way too many breaks compared to the rest of society. For example, wide receiver Donte Stallworrth killed a man while driving drunk, and only had to spend 30 days in jail. They typical citizen with regular attorneys and an average to little amount of money could have been in jail for at least 50 years. Everybody wanted to forgive Vick when he startedplaying well, but what if he had sucked from the beginning? Would these analysts have accepted him or ripped him to shreds like they did when he was arrested? I think that its ironic how these "expert" analysts want to analyze a person's life, instead of doing their job and analyzing the game only.