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Something big going on?

Richard Carnes

So much for the proposal to bring the Nugget’s off-season training camp to Happy Valley S

While scanning the local headlines over the last week, I stumbled across this little item of note that most of you might have missed. Your blissful ignorance is understandable, though, what with the fascinating hardcore horde of self-righteous yet proficient letter-to-the-editor writers of late repeatedly condemning and congratulating one another and the long-awaited opening of the Super Wal-Mart taking up most of our time.

Well, it seems we were visited by yet another squeaky clean, overpaid sports figure a couple of weeks ago, and this one evidently was being treated so darn well that he imagined himself still at a Las Vegas massage parlor upon ordering room service, of sorts.



All of this is alleged, of course, but hey, the facts is what the facts is, which in this particular case means we don’t know diddly yet.

Is the guy guilty of anything other than an honest misunderstanding between two adults around midnight in a hotel room?

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Is the young lady guilty of anything other than an honest misunderstanding, period?

As with many other altercations involving holier-than-thou public figures, the absolute truth will probably never be known. Keep in mind, though, that one only becomes squeaky clean after scrubbing all the dirt and scum of a normal life off with the soap of good publicity, followed by a quality clean rinse of good performance in one’s chosen field, resulting in that treasured stain-free image.

Society’s edges are overflowing with those pretending to be something they are not, or more than they really are. Perception rarely equals reality when it comes to today’s sport superstars, as well as politicians, CEOs, and those of the acting profession. I see no obvious reason for this case to be any

different.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf, but then again a damsel in distress could be a damsel looking for attention.

The guy could say, “Hey man, I thought she was coming on to me, so I took a chance. Yeah, I suppose it was stupid. But hey, it was no big deal.”

The young lady could say, “I was just being extra polite to an extra special guest of the resort. That’s part of my job.”

So who’s really to blame here, except of course the overzealous sheriff’s department, the misguided Clear Creek County judge, the left-out-in-the-cold DA’s office, the drama queen Eagle police chief, one stand-up taxi driver, and the clueless “somewhere west of Denver” national media?

The young lady certainly did not go to that room with the intent of putting herself, her family, her friends, and all of Eagle County in the middle of a media firestorm to rival the real blazes of last summer and the anticipated ones of the next few weeks.

Who has more at risk, a 19-year-old impressionable young lady working a summer job between semesters perhaps having a lapse of judgment, or a 24-year-old, married father, multi-millionaire international superstar making tens of millions of dollars annually?

“I shouldn’t have to say anything. You know I would never do something like that,” the guy said in a telephone interview with the LA Times over the weekend.

Yeah, and Pete Rose never gambled on baseball and the Vatican never hides secrets.

However, regardless of the intentions of all involved, anyone with a higher IQ than a sportswriter for the National Enquirer knows that nobody is going to jail.

If you stacked up every basketball that Kobe has ever officially made points with in the NBA, you would roughly match the altitude of the room where the alleged incident took place. All we know for sure is that one and a half miles straight up from the beaches of LA some type of incident occurred. Sure, a promising career might have hit a speed bump, but those balls and the dollars associated with it will continue to climb higher and higher regardless of how this plays out.

The young lady, on the other hand, will hopefully be able to continue her schooling and put this stupid mess behind her as quickly as possible.

As far as Happy Valley is concerned, where in the world are Ryan and Trista when we need them?

Richard Carnes of Edwards writes a weekly column for the Daily. He can be reached at poor@vail.net


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