Straight Macking

For years we have watched the media glorify the lifestyle of the athlete. We have seen the professional athlete presented as being larger than life. We have witnessed the abject worship of the might dollar, as the pro athlete is marketed and his image is carefully constructed to differentiate him from the average person.

Is it any surprise that the professional athlete generally lives life by a different set of rules?

Is it any surprise, too, that the average woman would pull up her skirt, drop her bloomies or do whatever else it took to land a professional athlete?

Resoundingly and without debate, we can all in unison exclaim, 'By the Grace of Allah, it is NO surprise!'

Also, without surprise, we understand how this idolatry and blasphemous worship of the athlete can cause weaker men to perpetrate. 'I played ball in college.' 'I played minor league baseball.' 'I had a tryout with the Giants.' And on and on. We've all heard these words pushed from the forked and weak tongue of individuals who clearly haven't the athletic prowess to cross a street.

But, occasionally, when one casts enough lines in the water. A fish bites.

"For months, a Boston-area woman thought she was dating a Sonics front-office employee and former NBA player named Jeff Turner, a handsome, 6-foot-8 40-something who was polite, compassionate and respectful. She thought she had scored a figurative slam-dunk in the Internet dating game."

Ahhh, yes.

The internet. The greatest mask one can find. The great equalizer. The opportunity to be what you want to be. Or, to be what you are not.

Conversely. The internet. The greatest escape one can find. The great optimizer. The opportunity for the naive to visit their fantasies. Or, lose touch with reality.

The man's real name is Ronnie Craven, and he had been telling friends and even his hometown newspaper that he was the Sonics' player development director. In an April 9 story in the Somerville News, he told the paper he had known Sonics general manager Sam Presti since coaching Presti and Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck at a Boston-area basketball camp in the late 1980s.


Certainly, it is sickening to think that a man could be pushed to such extreme dishonesty in his quest for attention and acceptance. It is also disturbing to think that the mainstream media has had such an impact on our sports culture that it drives people to such measures in their quest to experience what the athlete experiences.

That is, until one considers the reality of this situation. The impetus for what pushed this man to live a lie....

""(The situation was) all brought on by an online dating thing. Craigslist. I lied to her. Does that mean I can go out there and represent the Sonics? No. Does that mean that I did it to get some (sex)? Absolutely."

Indeed.

Perhaps the least surprising aspect of this story is the appearance of the culprit.






A middle aged white man.

Why is this not even surprising?