I can certainly understand and to a degree sympathize with what happens to these young men.
I told you all a few years ago that the Eagles running-back Shady McCoy was a friend of my son.
He came to a party at my home a few days before "his" draft. My son hated his guts, as he viewed him as cocky, arrogant, getting all the girls, etc, My son was all of those things, btw. Shady went the athletic route, my son went the drug-dealer route.
May he rest in peace.
I spent an hour discussing his future during that party. He told me he was going to the Cardinals (I think he said 6th or 7th in the first round) To myself, I kind of laughed and thought he was a bit arrogant for thinking he'd go that high as a running back.
His dad was a mail-man here in Harrisburg. He looked up to his dad. His dad taught him a work-ethic. In high school, he looked up to his coaches, because they did not give a damn how much talent he had, he was going to fly a straight and narrow path as they and his father saw he should...
It's just weird that the first people I ever met here in Harrisburg, PA were those two coaches at Bishop McDevitt High School (that was a football factory, under those two- Catholic school) I met them FISHING on the bank of a lake I still frequent to this day. I ALSO met the former head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, Dennis Green. THEY talked about how good this kid McCoy would be in the NFL. I think he was a freshman at the time.
Interestingly... young McCoy about to enter the NFL draft knew that I was a fellow-fisherman with his former coaches. I do not know how to this day. I never told my son, for example, that I had ever discussed anything with any of those men... Yet young McCoy knew I was a Marine, and wanted to know all about that.
He was absolutely idolized by all he was in contact with, to an amazing degree, at that point where he was going to be drafted.
I thought he handled it with profound maturity and restraint. I know where it came from. Those two coaches liked his dad, and I damn sure liked those two coaches. I don't know their names, but Dennis Green seemed to look up to them just as much as I did.
They were just smooth in convincing young men to do the right thing. I don't know how on this earth they resist most/all the hedonistic opportunities that come to them, pretty much since mid-high-school.