Sports stars that need good swift kick in the throat

My New Year's Eve was a bad news, good news situation.

The bad news: I was too sick to go out so I spent the night on my sofa. That's right, I spent New Year's Eve sick AND sober.

The good news: Since I couldn't go anywhere I had time to work on my latest blog.

Here are the nominees for the 2006 Kick in the Throat sports award.

Maurice Claret: In January 2006, the former Ohio State football star was charged with robbing two people at gunpoint. He was arrested again after a highway chase that ended with finding four loaded guns and a half-full bottle of vodka in his vehicle.

He has wasted so much talent it not even funny. It seems like only yesterday this guy was an NFL superstar in the making. I would love to make some jokes here but this just too sad to be funny.

Eddie Griffin: The Minnesota Timberwolves' forward crashed his SUV into a parked car outside a Minneapolis store. Griffin was allegedly drunk at the time. According to a witness, he was also was masturbating to a pornographic DVD playing on a dashboard-mounted screen.

This is a 'touchy' subject so I will try to handle it as delicately as possible.

If you are an NBA player and you have been drinking, hire a driver to take you home. It's worth it and it won't hurt you wallet.

If you want to watch porn in your vehicle make sure it is parked and the windows are tinted.

Griffin is not a “star” by any stretch of the imagination but he is still in the NBA. That means he has groupies. There is absolutely no reason for him to be doing this when there are probably hundreds of women in the Minneapolis/St. Paul that would sleep with him.

Just another reason for me to hate tall men.

Keith Hernandez: After seeing the San Diego Padres' female massage therapist in the team dugout during a game, Hernandez, a New York Mets broadcaster said, "I won't say that women belong in the kitchen, but they don't belong in the dugout."

Here is the sad part; I am willing to bet that Hernandez is still more popular with the ladies than I am.

Marcus Vick: The former Virginia Tech quarterback was kicked off the team for stomping on the leg of another player during the Gator Bowl. Two days later, he was arrested and charged after allegedly pointing a gun at three people in a McDonald's parking lot. That seems like a lot but Vick still had one more idiot card to play.

A 17-year-old girl sued Marcus Vick for $6.3 million. “Why?” you ask. She claimed that Vick sexually abused her during their nearly early two-year relationship, persuaded her to have a three-way with Vick and another man and assured her that sex between an adult and a "child of her age" was acceptable. Wow, I couldn't make that stuff up if I wanted to.

Vick is another waste of talent. The guy has a rocket launcher for an arm and can outrun almost anyone on the field with him but he can't stop doing dumb stuff. Once again, he was a star college player that could have had a great pro career. Guys like this make me and my frail, non-athletic behind sick.

Zinedine Zidane: Even if you don't follow soccer, you know about the headbutt heard 'round the world. The headbutt was the end of his career (it was his last game before retiring) and his team's chances to win the World Cup.

And the winner is...

This is a tough call; all of these guys deserve a hard kick to the throat. I don't really care about soccer but even I understand that Zidane's actions seriously hurt his team. Hernandez came across as a male sexist pig but, let's be honest, the world is full of them. And they usually get the girls anyway so you can't really fault them. Maurice Claret needs more help than a Kick in the Throat can provide. He really needs to see a mental health care professional. I can recommended a great one if he is interested. That leaves us with only two choices.

On behalf of all men in the world that can get a woman, I would like to deliver a Kick in the Throat to both Eddie Griffin and Marcus Vick. However, since we have already had one tie, I am going to present the award to Marcus Vick. Vick had much more star potential so his actions cost him much more. Plus they involved a teenage girl so he was doubly stupid.

As a man who is not getting any, I hate to see athletes doing stupid stuff over sex. And, as a 98-pound weakling, I can't stand guys blessed with physical talents that I could only dream of wasting them.

Marcus Vick is getting a Chun-Li Street Fighter style Kick in the Throat Award. I hope he chokes on a high heel.