Marcelo Gonzalez
English III Pre-AP
Mrs. Parker
May 3rd, 2013
Controlling Your Anger The aggravation and frustration in a professional sport can cause an athlete to do crazy unbelievable things, there have been accounts of people getting so angry and out of control that they even cause harm to themselves or even their families. There are many simple precautionary measures to prevent such things from happening. Not only are these procedures scientifically proven to work, but also ninety-five percent of all athletes in professional sports use this method. The reason why they use this? The answer is simple, it works. Not only should professional athletes use this method, bursts of sport induced anger happen anywhere from high school to the pros. Anger is actually even more common in high school due to teenagers going through puberty. They are not as extreme but they are definitely more frequently. In professional sports they have specific anger control specialists where is high school these psychological therapists are not as accessible. That is why people are trying to have these methods accessible to teenagers so they learn how to control their anger before they do anything crazy. One example of anger in a sport carrying over to their personal life is a professional boxer named Floyd “Money” Mayweather, Jr. who has had several cases of domestic violence, yet he is undefeated so he really doesn’t have anything to be angry about. Still he has been charged with domestic violence in 2002, 2004, 2010, and 2011. In 2002 he actually had not one but two counts of domestic violence and one case of misdemeanor battery, yet because of his “superstar” status he had only two days of house arrest. In 2004 he was charged with two counts of misdemeanor battery against women and he was given a $1000 dollar fine. For a while he was clean, coincidentally he was retired from the sport during this period, but when he decided to come back he again had legal trouble. In 2010 he again had domestic charges against him when his former girlfriend filed domestic battery reports against him, he was released after posting bail. Then lastly he probably had his worst legal trouble when he was sentenced to a three-month jail term in 2011 when he was found guilty of misdemeanor battery. Currently he is undergoing anger management to which he has said that he is “Feeling major improvement” and “Wishes I would have done this sooner to prevent what has transpired”. One example of anger that can be suppressed until it explodes is Junior Seau, who was a retired American Football Linebacker until his death on May 2nd, 2012. Seau was known as a friendly happy person, but his suicide could have been prevented if he took the precautionary measures and thought about what he was going to do before he did. “On May the second of last year Seau’s girlfriend found him dead with a gunshot wound to his chest.” The death of Seau has caused many teams in the NFL to hire sports psychologists, and the results have been astounding. Not only have there been less fights during games this year, but the amount of domestic violence, battery, driving while intoxicated, and assault cases have gone down significantly this year in the NFL. Last year 7.6 percent of all players had some sort of legal troubles during the year, this year only 3.2 percent of players had legal troubles. Anger doesn’t only affect you later on; you also need to control it during a game. Ron Artest (now known as Metta World Peace) who was then a Power Forward for the Indiana Pacers was suspended for eighty-six games and lost $5,000,000 for an altercation known as Malice in the Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan. “With less than a minute left in the game, a fight broke out between players on the court. After the fight was broken up, a drink was thrown from the stands at then Pacers player Ron Artest while he was lying on the scorer's table. Artest then entered the crowd and sparked a massive brawl between