Throwing It All Away

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While watching the amazing final quarter that Kobe Bryant gave the world of professional basketball last night (60 points!! Wow!!!) I saw something on the sports crawler that troubled me. Drew Rosenhaus, the agent for Johnny Manziel, has terminated his representation of the one-time projected number one NFL draft pick. Manziel's life has been a train wreck in the past three years, and that is putting it most mildly. Repeated offenses with alcohol (some of which started when he was legally underage to drink) and domestic violence have made Manziel a poster child of sorts -- for all the wrong reasons. Instead of being on top of the world, as he should be with his talent, it appears that he is, in the words of that old Genesis song, throwing it all away. And for what? Manziel lost his job with the Cleveland Browns. Since January 2016 he has lost two agents with this move by Rosenbaum. No team will take a chance on him. Rosenbaum said he would continue to represent Manziel on the condition that he check himself into an alcohol treatment facility within five days. In the past Manziel has obstinately refused to do so, ignoring pleas from football teams, fellow players, family, and even the people who are in charge of getting him a job. "This is a life-or-death situation," Rosenhaus said to Sirius/XM radio. "I'm not talking about football anymore. I'm talking about a young man who is in trouble." He made this decision shortly after Manziel was spotted partying in West L.A. night after night. Manziel dismissed the concern voiced then by saying, "I don't think the NFL has a problem with my partying. There's a difference between partying and being out of control." It's obvious that this once-promising quarterback -- who is only 23 years old -- is in severe danger of becoming another casualty of excesses. Naturally, as an adult, no one can force him to do anything. And, with his very career and source of income hanging precariously by a thread that he himself seems almost gleefully willing to cut, Manziel seems oblivious to the fact that his future is in grave danger. No team is going to take a chance on him when they can find half a dozen other quarterbacks of equal or superior talent who won't be headline fodder on ESPN every day. More importantly, it appears that others care far more about this kid's life than he himself does. I wrote a discussion earlier about Puddle of Mudd singer Wes Scantlin's onstage meltdown, fueled by drugs and alcohol, and how he's apparently on a downward spiral, paying no attention to the pleas from family, friends, and band mates to get help before it's permanently too late. Sadly, Manziel seems as though he is living in the same fog of "leave me alone unless you're going to buy me another fifth of whiskey," shunning all offers and pleas for assistance. "Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse" is a quote from the 1949 film Knock on Any Door.. It was later paraphrased in a Faron Young song, "Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young." That attitude is best left for the fiction of entertainment, where the actor who uttered the words or the singer who sang them will be back for another movie or another song. In real life, we only get one shot, and there are no mulligans. Here's hoping the next headline featuring Johhny Manziel is that he's in treatment and that he's cleaned up his act, not that he died while drunk. Here's the Genesis song I referenced: