Do Athletes Think Life’s a Game?

If you’re a rich pro athlete, you might believe some special rules apply to you when operating a motor vehicle.

You don’t have to carry a driver’s license.

You don’t have to carry a registration.

You can speed well beyond the posted limit.

When possible, you should keep your unregistered gun on the passenger seat and any illegal drugs in the ash tray where they are clearly visible.

If followed by a police cruiser, increase speed.

If pursued by state troopers, do not stop until you see a roadblock. High-speed U-turns are optional.

When stopped by police for questioning, never roll down your window or interrupt your cell phone call to your agent.

When leaving your vehicle, always identify yourself to the police by saying, “My name is (fill in the blank) and I am a superstar athlete. I make (blank) million dollars a year to play (blank), while you make peanuts risking your life protecting people. Ha, ha, ha.”

Once out of the car, push, curse or slap the officer. Or all three.

For more instructions see: “How To Choke Your Coach,” “When To Punch Out A Teammate,” “Spitting For Distance And Accuracy” and “What To Do After You Hit The Telephone Pole.”

Recently, at the MCI Center, one question hung in the air: What do you call it when Chris Webber is charged with three misdemeanors, plus six more traffic offenses--nine violations--in a single day?

A triple-triple.

It’s lucky for Webber that the crowd at The Phone Booth thatnight had a sense of humor. Perhaps, 20 years ago, if an athlete had embarrassed his team by being arrested and charged with assault, marijuana possession, resisting arrest, speeding and driving under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance, he’d at least have gotten his ears booed off the next time he showed his face.

Webber was greeted by tepid cheers, mixed with barely audible boos, when he was introduced. When Webber dunked, cheers. Another day, another guy with a $57-million contract and a court date. Surely it’s a sign of the times when some of us read the charges against Webber and, perhaps to our own shame, think, “That’s all?”

It’s easy to become numb. The public has been conditioned to assume that the athlete’s speed of choice is 120 miles per hour. Except when the police blotter says 130--the speed the Redskins’ Terry Allen is charged with driving in his pending Georgia court case. Webber was only 20 miles over the legal speed limit. If you get lucky, you can drive 70 in a 50 mph zone and have cops pass you, not stop you.

Police don’t claim that Webber had a trunk full of pot, just a roach in his ashtray. Should we feel relief? Besides, Webber didn’t choke anybody. Instead, he allegedly slapped away a policeman’s hand.

Stepping back from Webber’s case, perhaps we can see a pattern in all the legal scrapes of our current star athletes, especially in the NBA. If Charles Barkley isn’t throwing a man through a plate glass window, then Latrell Sprewell is choking his coach. What’s going on?

Partly, it’s the curse of cool.

In the past 30 years, our culture has turned the anti-hero, the rebel, the bad dude, the outlaw, into an icon. The careers of Mick Jagger in rock or Jack Nicholson in movies describe the arc. Be outrageous. Then top yourself. Can’t be hip unless you’ve got an edge.

“What are you rebellin’ against, Johnny?” Marlon Brando is asked in “The Wild One.” “Whaddaya got?” he answers. That was 40 years ago. Long ago, the refrain became stale. Now, Stones songs run behind Fortune 500 company TV ads. That’s rebellion?

Athletes, like pop musicians and young Hollywood stars, sometimes bring limited resources to the project of building a personality. Maybe they’ve been pampered or overpaid or allowed to bypass an education. When they look around them, searching for their own characters, they see stances, attitudes, fashions.

A couple of years ago, even Michael Jordan came to the arena dressed like Al Capone. It’s unconscious. It’s innocent. It’s where style can take us. But it can be dangerous.

When you act like a fake outlaw, you shouldn’t be surprised when you’re treated like a real one. If you’ve got the drugs in the car, if you’re way over the speed limit, if you’ve got an attitude with the cops, how are they supposed to know that you’re just a rich young jock who’s play-acting until he figures out who he is?

Real outlaws always pay the price. Sometimes, imitation ones do, too.