May I point your attention to this nugget which I picked up via Deadspin. It's an old article but I thought it worth mentioning for one specific moment.
This is the kind of thing that so often gets lost amongst the masses of news stories around North American athletes. I guess that is due to sheer amount of stuff that comes out over there. And certainly very little gets picked up here in the UK of relatively minor stories like this.
Edgerrin James was at this time the running back for the Indianapolis Colts. Basically one of top players on one of the top teams in the NFL.
The way the night owl James saw it, to regain the form that enabled him to lead the NFL in rushing in each of his first two seasons, 1999 and 2000, it was imperative that he work out on his own schedule, peculiar as it might have seemed. So James created Alligator Alley's answer to a 24-hour fitness center. As for his spotters and running partners, he didn't have a lot of options. "At that time of night the crackheads are the only ones awake," James says. "I'd roll down Second Street, find a dude stumbling around and say, 'Yo, come rack my weights.' Other times I'd pay one to run with me." Talk about speed training.
Let us not forget quite how bonkers this is. Imagine that a Premier League footballer came out with this one. We would never hear the end of it.
The killer line, and he actually said this:
"I know it doesn't sound like much but for crackheads, that's two hits and a solid meal."
Not much more to say really. The madness speaks for itself.
