When drugs and booze smash a sports career to bits

WE TAKE a look at some of the more prominent athletic careers hampered, cut short or destroyed by the cruel power of drugs and alcohol.

HERE is a look at some of the more prominent athletic careers hampered, cut short or destroyed before they even started by the cruel power of drugs and alcohol.

Len Bias

Drug: Cocaine

Career: None

First on the list, alphabetically and every other way. Drafted No. 2 overall by the Celtics on June 17, 1986. The next night, he overdosed on cocaine, and was pronounced dead at 8:55am. June 19 from cardiac arrhythmia, commonly associated with cocaine use. The former Maryland star is one of the best talents to never play a second in the pros and one of the biggest tragedies in the sports annals.

Todd Carney

Drug: Alcohol

Career: 2004-2014 (166 NRL games, 3 State of Origin games, 1 Test cap)

Carney was one of the best players in the world, numerous times. But it was never for long.

The immensely talented rugby league star had a knack for finding trouble during his ill-fated NRL career.

Carney won the Dally M Medal as the NRL’s best player in 2010, but by then he had an astonishing rap sheet that included a five-year licence suspension for drink driving and reckless driving, a suspended jail sentence for further driving and drink driving offences, having his contract terminated by the Canberra Raiders, another suspended jail term for damaging a vehicle, a nude photo scandal and a string of other incidents.

He was sacked from the Sydney Roosters in 2011 after breaking a club agreement to not touch alcohol, but quickly re-signs with Cronulla. The final sordid act came in June 2014 when he was photographed engaging in a graphic act in the toilets of a Cronulla nightclub.

Former Cronulla Shark Todd Carney.

Diego Maradona

Drug: Cocaine

Career: 1977-1994 (34 goals in 91 games for Argentina)

Maradona is generally regarded as one of the two best soccer players in history, named joint FIFA Player of the 20th Century with Pelé. It boggles the mind to think what he could have done if his mind had been clear. He started using cocaine in 1983 in Barcelona and developed an addiction. He was suspended for 15 months in 1991 for cocaine, and was sent home in disgrace from the 1994 World Cup in the US after testing positive for ephedrine. He’s been hospitalised several times since retirement for alcohol and cocaine abuse.

Anthony Gobert

Drug: Marijuana

Career: 1994-2000 (8 Superbike wins from 57 starts, 10 Grand Prix starts)

Described by people who would know as one of the most naturally talented riders ever to sit atop a motorcycle, Gobert’s career was ruined by his addiction to drugs and alcohol. Gobert stunned the motorcycle world when, riding as a wildcard at the 1994 World Superbike round at Phillip Island, he set pole position, won one race and finished third in another.

Joining the Kawasaki squad in 1995, he won two races in his first full season and another three in 1996, before switching to race against Mick Doohan in 500cc. He didn’t last the season.

The 22-year-old was given the flick mid-season after testing positive for marijuana.

He eventually secured rides with other teams, including Superbike outfit Ducati, but was sacked there too after again testing positive for marijuana. His last rides at the sport’s top level were in 2000, and the motorsport world will never know how good the New South Welshman could have been.

Anthony Gobert was one of the most talented bike riders Australia has ever produced.

Darryl Strawberry

Drug: Alcohol, cocaine

Career: 1983-1999 (. 259 average, 335 homers, 1,000 RBIs)

In debates over unrealised potential, Strawberry’s name always comes up. A No. 1 overall draft pick from inner-city Los Angeles with impressive physical talent and prodigious home run power, Strawberry’s ceiling was lowered by his incessant cocaine use with the Mets. He won a World Series in 1986, and after playing with the Dodgers and Giants, came back to join the Yankees in 1999. He was promptly busted in Florida in possession of cocaine while trying to solicit a hooker.

Todd Marinovich

Drug: Alcohol, amphetamines, cocaine, LSD, marijuana

Career: 1991-92 (8 TDS, 1,345 passing yards, 66.4 QB rating)

When he arrived at USC, he was known as “Robo Q” for the meticulous training his perfectionist ex-player father had given him. But they were calling him “Marijuanavich” after he started smoking pot and taking LSD before games. He got busted for cocaine and failed three drug tests in two disappointing years with the Raiders.

Former USC star Todd Marinovich.

Bob Probert

Drug: Alcohol, cocaine

Career: 1985-2002 (163 goals, 221 assists, one-time All-Star)

A former winger for the Red Wings and Blackhawks, Probert played hard and partied harder. When the Red Wings cut him in 1994, Detroit senior vice president Jim Devellano said, “[In] my 12 years with the organisation … we’ve never spent more time on one player and his problems than we have on Probert.’’ He collapsed and died in 2010 at the age of 45. The retired brawler donated his brain to science, and it showed signs of CTE, or chronic brain trauma.

Michael Ray Richardson

Drug: Cocaine

Career: 1978-86 (14.8 points, 7.0 assists per game, four-time All-Star)

Picked No. 4 overall by the Knicks, Richardson never fulfilled his promise. He made three straight All-Star games for the Knicks, but they shipped him to the Warriors, who shipped him out after just 33 games. He had a career season in 1984-85 for the Nets with 20.1 points and 8.2 assists, but he got banned for life the next year for three failed drug tests. He got another shot in 1988, but after failing two more tests for cocaine, he was eventually gone for good.

Derek Boogaard died aged 28 of a drug overdose.

Derek Boogaard

Drug: Alcohol, oxycodone

Career: 2005-2011 (3 goals, 13 assists)

A renowned fighter from the plains for Canada, he got hooked on painkillers (Percocet, then Vicodin) while with the Minnesota Wild. He went away to rehab, and eventually signed with the Rangers. Once in New York, he relapsed with the painkillers and started drinking, spiralling into depression. He died of an overdose at the age of 28 after mixing alcohol with Percocet.

Doc Gooden

Drug: Cocaine

Career: 1984-2000 (194-112, 3.51 ERA, 2,293 strikeouts)

Everyone who saw Gooden follow up his NL Rookie of the Year award with a 1985 campaign for the ages — 24 wins, 1.53 ERA, 268 Ks — thought he would become one of the greatest pitchers ever. He might have been, if not for the partying and drugs he descended into in New York. After the Mets won the 1986 World Series, he tested positive for cocaine the next year, and again in 1994. His career was never the same.

The freakishly talented Diego Maradona.

Steve Howe

Drug: Alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine

Career: 1980-1996 (47-41, 3.03 ERA, 328 Ks)

The name Steve Howe is synonymous with second chances … and third and fourth and so on. He won the NL Rookie of the Year in 1980, saved the Dodgers’ World Series clincher the next year and was an All-Star the season after that. But he was suspended in 1984 for alcohol and cocaine abuse, the first of a mind-bending seven bans in a career inextricably linked with drugs.

Roy Tarpley

Drug: Alcohol, cocaine

Career: 1986-1995, 1994 (12.6 points, 10 boards)

The Mavericks big man committed three separate drug and alcohol violations in the 1989-90 and 1990-91 seasons. He got suspended after being arrested for DWI for resisting arrest six games into the 1989 season, and got suspended again in March 1991 for another DWI arrest. A third violation a few months later got him tossed out of the league, and even after getting a second shot in 1994, he squandered that by drinking alcohol, and got tossed out again for good the next December.

Originally published as When drugs and booze smash a sports career to bits