A Real Fallen Athlete? Jayson Williams

A week ago nearly every media outlet was fixated on Tiger Woods and his apology news conference. We saw pundits, columnists, journalists, radio talk show hosts, psychologists, body language experts, entertainers and anyone with an opinion weigh in on the sincerity of Tiger. Was he really sorry for committing adultery? Should he apologize further? And hundreds of other angles.

Some even described him as a fallen athlete who will lose millions of endorsements and a man who has destroyed the trust he built up with his fans. I even heard one woman say that she needed Tiger to apologize, but couldn't articulate why it mattered so much to her, especially since she wasn't his wife, wasn't kin to him and wasn't a family friend.

Yet if there were ever one athlete we could truly place in that category of fallen athlete, it would be former NBA star Jayson Williams.

While Tiger brought shame on himself and his family by his admitted extramarital affairs, he has broken no laws, and what he did doesn't affect us at all.

Yet Williams is another matter. This week, he was led away in handcuffs after being sentenced in a New Jersey court for fatally shooting a limo driver on Feb. 14, 2002.

Some news networks carried his sentencing live, but most networks ignored his case, which ended eight years of courtroom drama.

Frankly, if there were a case that would be instructive to kids who look up to athletes, it's Jayson and not Tiger.

Jayson Williams was a gregarious and fun-loving man who could light up the court. When injuries took their toll and ended his NBA career, he was a rising TV analyst with NBC, a playful man with a big heart.

I'll never forget watching Jayson on "Oprah" with his dad talking about building his huge mansion; how it was a place where hundreds of kids traveled through as a result of his charitable endeavors.

He had a zest for life.

But that all ended on the night the life of Costas Christofi ended. After a dinner, Williams returned to his home. He was showing several folks his many guns, when he snapped his double-barreled, 12-gauge shotgun shut. Not realizing it was loaded, a single bullet hit Christofi in the chest.

A panicked Williams put the gun in Christofi's hand, even jumping in his pool, hoping to wash away the evidence.

Williams was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter and convicted on four counts of cover-up. He settled with Christofi's family for $2 million, while the case went back and forth through the legal system.

And while that was happening, Williams began to lose it all. His wife filed for divorce; he was hit with a stun gun by police after an encounter; he crashed his vehicle in another incident and threatened to kill himself.

Williams was a man who fell victim to alcohol and guns, a deadly combination.

He was sentenced to five years in jail and is eligible for parole in 18 months. Everything he had — money, fame, budding TV career, marriage, friends, respect — all lost because of the horrible decisions he made one fateful night.

Jayson Williams didn't achieve the level of fame as Tiger Woods, but we can surely learn more from his fall from grace than Tiger. The former killed a man; the latter cheated on his wife. Both morally wrong, but only one legally wrong.

Tiger will undoubtedly return to the golf course one day. Sure, he can fret about losing millions in endorsements and may have to confront losing his wife. But Williams must forever live with the memory of a man dying as a result of his actions.

We all may want to focus on Tiger, but it's the tragedy of Jayson Williams that should have all of us talking and examining what went wrong in the charmed life of a basketball star.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN analyst and the author of the forthcoming book "The First: President Barack Obama's Road to the White House as originally reported by Roland S. Martin." Please visit his website at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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