Creep of the Week - December 7, 1996

Leon Lett

HELP WANTED: Talented athletes to play in the National Football League, working six months a year at something you really enjoy and which makes the most of your God-given gifts, in front of thousands of adoring fans who will cheer your every move. Compensation package includes a multi-million dollar salary, first-class travel, free admission to the Super Bowl, and all the women you can fit in your bed. In return for all this, we only ask one thing: No Drugs.

Sound like a good deal? I'd take it. It can be debated whether the No Drugs demand is proper and even whether drug use adversely affects athletic performance. But that's the offer - take it or leave it. Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Leon Lett took it, but now he's leaving it, having been suspended from the league this week for a period of one year because he violated the No Drugs policy, also violating his teammates and fans in the process. If this sounds familiar it's because this is Leon's second drug suspension. He was suspended for four games last season for the same thing. We all have to make compromises to stay gainfully employed, but Leon seems to have been operating under the delusion that he was exempt from this little rule of life. Why? Because he has a heavyweight body and a lightweight brain.

Before he was permitted to return from his last suspension, Leon was surely given a lecture something like this: "Leon, are you listening? Since you violated the drug rules once, you are now subject to random drug testing. A little man will be following you around the locker room with a test tube and you will have to pee into it ten times a month. Do you understand that, Leon? If you use drugs, we will know about it. The proof will be in the urine. You can't fool the test tube tester, Leon. Use drugs and you're out. OK? Leon?"

What drove Leon to this? It could well have been some of the headlines he's made on the field over the years. In the 1993 Super Bowl, Leon was heading for a touchdown and thinking he was invulnerable, starting hot-dogging it several yards in front of the goal line. Instead of making the touchdown, Leon was downed himself, tackled from behind and humiliated in front of millions. On Thanksgiving Day of the same year, Leon screwed up a fumble recovery in the last minute of the game, causing Dallas to lose and ruining Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' premature sideline victory ritual.

Leon joins Cowboys players Michael Irvin, Shante Carver, Clayton Holmes and Cory Fleming who have been suspended for drugs since 1994. Dallas calls itself "America's Team", a term which has always made me want to vomit, but I guess they're starting to resemble our country's multitude of arrogant hedonists, so maybe it's an apt description after all.

Let me know what you think at montgome@servtech.com

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