Lack of willpower for drugs, alcohol, and gambling is a major reason behind athletes’ ruined lives and careers.
These vices can destroy the greatest and most talented players, limiting their ability to play, destroying their images, draining them financially, and sometimes even resulting in their demise.
Although the vices could be different, the result is usually the same. Athletes like Darryl Strawberry, Shawn Merriman, and so on who have succumbed to these destructive practices never reach their full potential and end up ruining their careers.
Keep on reading to find out how some of the brightest stars in sports like baseball, basketball, and American football managed to destroy their careers because they succumbed to drug use.
Dwight Gooden
Dwight Goodman was a Mets legend who led the Mets to their World Series Championship in 1986 but started taking partying and everything that came with it more seriously than his career. His Hall of Fame ambitions died due to his battle with drugs and alcohol for decades.
The 1985 National League Cy Young Award winner went to rehab in 1987 after a drug test came out positive for cocaine while in a Mets training camp.
Gooden eventually got suspended for a season in 1995 after failing a second drug test. His colorful past also includes crimes like reckless driving, using a suspended license to drive, and battery for allegedly being violent with his fiancée.
For the next couple of years, Gooden was on probation and even went to jail. But although the sport brought him near the drugs that ruined his life, Gooden has maintained that his time playing baseball was the best years of his life.
Darryl Strawberry
Darryl Strawberry was another baseball player who fumbled his career with drug use, although not as bad as Gooden. Strawberry’s drug use goes as far back as the 1980s when he was with the New York Mets.
His use of cocaine most often overshadowed his career in baseball. Overall he was suspended thrice for cocaine use in his career.
However, those days are past him now; Strawberry is now clean and has trodden the path of a minister. He has embraced religion and gives warning speeches to people around the country about the dangers of addiction.
The multiple-time World Series champion also started a foundation aimed at helping people with autism. Although late, Strawberry seems to have finally gotten his life in order.
Roy Tarpley
With this athlete, we’re moving away from the world of baseball to basketball. Roy Tarpley passed away in January 2015 at 50; however, his cause of death was not disclosed.
In 1986, this 7-foot athlete was the seventh pick in the NBA draft in Michigan. He was a part of the Mavericks until he was banned from the NBA because of his cocaine use in October 1991.
Tarpley played in Greece after that first ban until he was reinstated in 1994. He came back to the Mavericks and signed a $20 million, six-year contract but was permanently banned the next year by the NBA for alcohol use and violating the conditions of an aftercare program imposed by the court.
Tarpley returned to Greece after his career ended and sued the NBA and his former team in 2007 for discrimination. The case was settled in January 2009; however, the terms remain unknown.
Shawn Merriman
It’s a rare sad occurrence in the National Football League when a player who came in and immediately became a force to be reckoned with and then with the same speed fades into anonymity. However, this is exactly what happened to Shawn Merriman, an outside linebacker who announced his retirement after eight NFL seasons.
He broke the news on his personal website saying, “After a lengthy discussion with my agent, family and team, I have officially decided to put in my retirement papers today,” Merriman wrote. Merriman didn’t waste time in making an impact when he was picked by the San Diego Chargers.
He got Defensive Rookie of the Year Honors for finishing his first season with 57 tackles and 10 sacks. However, things didn’t continue to go well for him.
In October 2006, Merriman was suspended for four games for violating the NFL’s policy against performance-enhancing drugs. He tested positive for steroids but claimed it was a result of a contaminated nutritional supplement.
Merriman served his suspension, but that was the beginning of the end of his career. Tests revealed that Merriman had some torn ligaments in his knee, and this was the beginning of a series of injuries that eventually led to his retirement.
