Whatever happened to Willie Middlebrooks?

[jerrym]

Many of these guy fall in love with Canada for various reasons. You can have a pretty normal good quality life with no need to carry a gun. Some of these US players come from seriously bad areas. I remember at Joe Badailis talking with a Lion DB at the time Carter. I forget his first name but he also played with Hamilton. We were two of the last few folks left iun the bar and we talked about all kinds of stuff including his childhood in the hood. Canada would be like a breath of fresh air to many of these guys. Not like they'd have to live in bad areas in the states now but lets face it Canada is a pretty great place to live.

I agree to some extent. I think that is why so many of the American Argos are so enthusiastic about going to the Toronto high schools. They see a city which does not have as much extreme bullying, violence and extreme poverty as in many inner US cities. However, they also see that there are many young people growing up in marginal circumstances here and they see that bullying and violence is on the upswing in Toronto. They want to provide a vision of another way than violence (which includes bullying since this involves the implied threat of violence), oftentimes because they have experienced that personally or have lost relatives or friends because of it. They want to provide hope and to suggest that like them, these young people can make it (not necessarily in sports, but in life). It may only work for a few of them, but if redirects even a few such people in a better direction, it will have accomplished something special. I don't think there is another team in any sport that does the job the Argos do in this area.