Growing up...sometimes it means breaking from the pack.

[nickagneta]

As we grow up, coming from different neighborhoods, different ethnicities, different cultures, different likes and dislikes, we tend to migrate to a certain group of people and group of friends. It really doesn't matter who you are, this is just a common part of growing up. It is usually, along with your parents, teachers and respected elders, one of the defining group of people that make you into the person that you become.

But as high school ends and life begins, whether that be life at college, in the service, or at a job trying to find a career, there comes a time when people have to mature past childhood relationships and make a decision as to what is important to them. Is college, a job, a career, a wife, a relationship, and/or children you priorities or are those friendships from the old neighborhood, the old team, the old group of "boys" or "girls" the priority.

Sometimes, growing up means having to make the tough choices and sometimes that means more than what job to take, or what college to go to or what person to spend the rest of your life with. Sometimes it means choosing which sacrifices to make. It means choosing not to go out drinking regularly. It means not spending Friday night out until 4-5 in the morning. It means getting a good night's sleep because you have to work the next day. And sometimes, it means sacrificing the relationships that you know will only lead to no good.

I'm not saying that people should end important relationships with true friends but there comes a point when one needs to distinguish between true friendship and just people people from the neighborhood who will lead you to no good. And that I think is becoming a bigger and bigger problem for the modern athlete. It is a problem that all too recently has led to some much publicized problems for some of our largest athletic heroes.

Glen Davis, apparently Wyc Grousbeck has had enough of the "Big Baby" moniker, is thinking of suspending Davis over a recent incident in which Davis got into a fight, hurt himself, and now might miss the entire season and waste $6 million or more of Wyc's money because of it($3 million salary, $3 million luxury tax, maybe more to replace him). And why?

I do not profess to know all the details but from what I do know, an old friend/acquaintance/team mate came to visit and started a fight with Glen and while defending himself, he got hurt and now will be out indefinitely. Could this have been averted? Is this just another case of an athlete not knowing the difference between friends and hangers on? Is this just another case of an athlete not knowing when its time to cut old ties and concentrate on healthy relationships only?

I don't have those answers because I don't know the situation well enough but I think they are fair questions to ask. Recently it has come to light that Antoine Walker doesn't have a dime of the over $100 million he earned as an NBA player because he kept as many as 70 people on his payroll. People who were nothing more than old friends from the neighborhood. He lavished expensive gifts on old buddies. And he kept a spendthrift;s lifestyle of long night out gambling and partying. Antoine Walker is the epitome of that of which I speak. He never grew up. He never decided to sacrifice some of the people who would only drag him down and I would not put it past Antoine that he come to a bad end in jail at some point because he couldn't let go of the neighborhood and the people he met there.

Tony Allen is another case. Tony has been in some much publicized problems with fights, after hour clubs, gun fire, and mobsters threatening his life. Why? Could it be he just can't distinguish between those relationships that will help him and those that will hurt him? Could it be he just was never mature enough to make the tough decisions about what was truly important to him in his life? I, myself, have to think that this is the case.

These are just three cases but it is a common story around professional sports and all too often it ends badly for the athlete that can't distinguish when it's time to grow up and when it's time to let go of your childhood relationships and realize that not all those people you meet when you are young are going to be people that you want to be around when you grow up.