Michael Phelps: One-Time Mistake or a Bad Olympic Seed?
Thursday, February 5th, 2009So if you missed David Letterman’s Top Ten list of Michael Phelps excuses for his marijuana mishap — my favorite, #3. Chillax, Brosef.” — or haven’t watched a news broadcast on any station from CBS to Sports Center, you might not know about the swimming sensation’s most recent scandal.
A picture surfaced of Michael Phelps smoking a bong at a college party. While it’s true that Phelps has not lived up to his Olympian image and has surely let lots of people, friends, family and fans alike, down, is this being blown out of proportion? Eight-time Olympic gold medalist or not, he’s 23 years old. Not that that excuses his behavior, not that that means all 23 year olds behave in the same manor. But can’t this incident be chalked up to being young and immature?
But how many incidents can we chalk up to immaturity in Phelps’ case? He’s starting to grow quite the collection — bong-smoking in ‘08, a DUI in ‘04, and an anonymous source close to Ms. Informed revealed that when Phelps was making a commercial for this company’s line of personal and business use jets, “he also trashed one of our planes with his friends.”
Young and immature, or an all-around rotten apple? You decide.







