I'm A Married Man and So Are Athletes

I got married this weekend. It was one of the best days of my life being around friends and family. I'll admit, I even cried. But enough of the sappy stuff. In honor of my wedding this Fourth of July weekend, I've ranked athlete marriages based on how they turned out. Using basketball terminology, you should have a pretty good idea of how the marriage has played out, and which sportsman I most want my marriage to be like. The rankings are from least desirable to most desirable outcome:

Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren (basketball equivalent of playing for the Los Angeles Clippers your entire career, and in the last play of your career you dunk in the wrong basket to give the Lakers a last-second win only to break your leg while coming down) Bad things man. This had all the makings of a fairy-tale wedding. Tiger married a beautiful Swedish woman who gave him beautiful kids and was there for some of his biggest victories. But while Tiger was conquering the courses, he was also conquering and re-conquering a countless number of women. Then one Thanksgiving Day....Elin with a golf club....shatters the back of an SUV.....which crashed into a tree.....cops come and find Tiger half-dazed in the driver's seat......what happened?.....cheating....pornstars...text messages......the cover of every single gossip magazine.....divorce.....huge alimony....and Tiger's career has not been the same since.

Brandon Marshall and Michi Nogami-Marshall (basketball equivalent of playing for the Los Angeles Clippers your entire career except for your last year when you join a title contender and reach the Finals. You get fouled attempting a three-point shot in Game 7 with 0.01 seconds left and your team down by 1. You miss all three free-throw shots and lose the championship to the Los Angeles Clippers and their new coach Phil Jackson.) Michi stabbed Brandon Marshall in the abdomen. She stabbed her husband! Maybe this is worse than the whole Tiger ordeal, because this could have been murder, but Marshall survived and the whole world won't find out exactly what drove this woman to a raging fit. Maybe Michi was acting in self-defense, who knows.......I'm getting nauseous just writing about this..........

Dwyane Wade and the former Siohvaughn Wade (basketball equivalent of being the tallest guy on the court and you get picked first during the pick-up games with the expectation that you're good because you're a tall guy on a basketball court, only then you actually begin to play and everyone finds out you're really not that good, in fact, you're the worst player on the team. Then you get self-conscious and you start thinking how you were the first pick and you really shouldn't have been and some guy six inches shorter than you who thinks he's Michael Jordan is always stealing the ball from you and then your teammates begin to get mad and you can tell because they're shaking their heads in your direction. You lose the game when the other team scores on a fast break when your attempted dunk bounces off the back of the rim to midcourt where the MJ wannabe jumps for the ball and passes to his 5'6" friend for the winning layup.) Such is the case with Dwyane Wade and his high school sweetheart. It seemed like a dream marriage. You know, NBA Superstar marries his high school love and now they've made it this far and they're famous and rich and have the whole world in front of them. Except that Dwyane Wade is now rich and famous. He can get any girl he wants, including one Gabrielle Union. Siovaughn alleges he gave her an STD. He says she smashed his MVP trophy with a baseball bat. She says he hasn't seen his kids in months. He says she was trying to put curses on him. She says he gave Gabrielle Union more and bigger gifts than he gave to his own kids. He says she cheated on him first with some dude. She says he hosted elaborate sex and marijuana parties. The moral of the story? I'm not sure, but I want to take a shower now.

David and Victoria Beckham (basketball equivalent of being Patrick Ewing. You're one of the greatest players ever. You won a national championship at Georgetown, two gold medals in the Olympics, and were voted one of the greatest 50 players in NBA history. You are the first pick in the NBA Draft to the New York Knicks waiting to capitalize on your basketball talents and to market your brand to the biggest market in the world. You win Rookie of the Year in 1986 and are named an All-Star 11 times. You are one of the most dominant and complete centers of your era. But you came around in Michael Jordan's era. You can't beat the Bulls to reach the Finals even when you have them down 2-0 in 1993. Finally you reach the Finals in 1994, Jordan is retired, and your Knicks are up 3-2 in the Finals against the Houston Rockets. You lose two very close games in Games 6 and 7 and another of your contemporaries, Hakeem Olajuwon, is seen as your superior because you couldn't win that elusive championship. All in all though, you're one of the greatest, but you came up just short). I love the Beckhams. They have their issues, sure. But what couple doesn't? She's a bit controlling and possessive, she needs to approve what he wears, she spends a fortune on clothes and things like that, but you know what? So do you. You're also always receiving kidnapping threats and even attempts on your life that briefly forced you to move to Los Angeles. And you David allegedly had an affair that made for huge tabloid headlines and embarrassed your wife. You denied all allegations, but if such was the case then all seems forgiven. They are English royalty without having to be formal stiffs. They were invited to Will and Kate's wedding, are jointly one of the 20 richest people in Britain, and continue to do some amazing charitable work. When they speak, just about everyone listens. They even named a pretty cool movie in David's name.

Phil and Amy Mickelson (basketball equivalent of being Michael Jordan. You're the greatest ever. You want to score the winning jump shot in the 1982 national championship against Patrick Ewing's Georgetown squad? OK. You want to win six championships and five MVP's? OK. You want to massively dunk on Ewing? OK. You want to win the dunk contest against Dominique Wilkins? OK. You want to make sure that Ewing, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton, and Reggie Miller never win any championships? OK. You want to personally keep Isiah Thomas off the 1992 Dream Team because you hate him so much? OK. You want to be the biggest, baddest, mothalova on the court? OK. You want to brand the most popular sneaker the world has ever seen? OK. You want people to laugh when they compare LeBron James to you? OK. You want to give the worst Hall of Fame induction speech ever and still be respected and admired? OK. You want to own your own basketball team? OK. You want to be known as one of the greatest owners and general managers ever? Um....I think I'm getting ahead of myself) Here's a man who loves his wife so much and a woman who loves her husband so much. Before Amy Mickelson had cancer, she was a devoted wife to Phil sticking with him even as he was dogged as a talented but underachieving golfing talent. She was always with him on the tour as were his kids. He never once strayed from her side when he could've easily done the Tiger and hopped from bed to bed. Then Amy was diagnosed with cancer and what does Mickelson do? He stops playing golf to be with her. Then he wins the 2010 Master's, his fourth career major championship, less than one year after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. What does he do? With tears in his eyes he walks up to her and gives her one big embrace. It's the greatest moment you can hope ever hope to see.....until........

Eddie and Doris Robinson (basketball equivalent of being Jason McElwain. You're diagnosed with autism, you're a team manager and you've never played a single minute of a single game for your high school basketball team. Your coach let's you play in the final minutes of the final game of the regular season because your team is up by 20. You're basically the 13th guy on the bench, and there are only 12 spots. You're not Michael Jordan, but you play like him for 4 magical minutes. You score 20 points in 4 minutes and finish as the game's high scorer. It's great to be Michael Jordan, but it's even better to play like him when you're told that it's impossible. You inspire thousands not because you're a basketball player, but because you're just a kid defying all the odds stacked against you). Coach Eddie Robinson of Grambling State would walk hand-in-hand with his wife, Doris, before every football practice so his players could see how a man should love a woman. Even in the midst of football season, he made it a point to eat lunch and dinner with his wife every day. He loved her more than anything and they stayed married for more than 65 years until Coach's passing in 2007. With a woman like that to love, it is no wonder Robinson is the all-time winningest football coach in Division I-AA history with 408 wins. That's what I want my marriage to look like.