Tax-funded millionaire athletes raising your kids

Dennis Rodman and O.J. Simpson mentoring your kids?

It was a bad idea when Bill Clinton suggested it at an appearance with the New Jersey Nets during his presidency.

And it's an even dumber idea, now that former Nebraska football coach turned Republican Congressman Tom Osborne has spent our tax dollars on it. To the tune of $150 million in pork-barrel spending.

Yes, thanks to Osborne, you'll be paying $150 million for millionaire, dysfunctional pro-athletes and similar "role models" to mentor America's youth.

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With the recently passed education budget already bloated beyond belief in order to appease NEA liberals and Ted Kennedy, Osborne succeeded in getting his amendment for an additional $150 million stuck onto it. And liberals, like Kennedy and the teachers lobby, love Osborne's plan to make the Department of Education even fatter with his new program, which resembles their favored "Midnight Basketball" approach – and will likely
be ineffective.

Osborne told the Omaha World-Herald that his new, unproven $150 million program is "his contribution to the rewriting of federal education policy." If only he'd kept his taxing "contributions" to himself.

But it's a lot worse. Osborne cited TeamMates – a youth mentoring program he founded, but funded with $1 million of our money, for his University of Nebraska football players to mentor Nebraska's youth – as the prime example and reason for our tax dollars to go to this ridiculous gravy-train. He claimed that his jock mentors and other similar programs provide "an effective preventative to social ills such as teen pregnancy, high school dropout rates and substance abuse." College athletes – especially Osborne's – mentoring kids about social ills! Is there a bigger joke?

While head coach of the University of Nebraska football team, Osborne had an interesting approach to mentoring against social ills. He allowed criminal after criminal to play on his team – rarely disciplining them and constantly coming to their defense – in his win-at-all-costs mentality. Like a typical Kennedy liberal, he rewarded these players from the killing fields of America for their killing-field behavior, constantly arguing that we must understand the root causes and backgrounds of his beloved vicious thugs. Violent convicted criminals, like Lawrence Phillips – who brutally assaulted a former girlfriend – and sex offenders, like Christian Peter, were Osborne's heroes on and off the field. Player Jason Jenkins smashed a beer bottle into a man's face causing him to lose his eye. Other Osborne "role models" shot at people or into cars occupied with people, but according to Osborne, they never meant to kill anyone.

There is a reason Osborne's name frequently appears as poster-child coach of players in the books "Public Heroes, Private Felons" and "Pros & Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL." "Sports Illustrated" called his and his players' behavior, "prairie justice." "The New York Post" called it, "Tom foolery." And USA Today asked, "What exactly does it take to get a Cornhusker suspended for the season?"

Just which of these "role model" players were "mentors" in Osborne's TeamMates program?

How great it will be in fiscal year 2002 when the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Bill, a.k.a. the Education Bill, goes into effect, and $150 million of our tax dollars go to funding Osborne's version of monsters – er, "mentors." One Osborne congressional staffer told me that any "mentoring" program would be eligible for the money, as long as it has a screening process for mentors. She had no idea what kind of screening process would be the absolute minimum, and none is specified in Osborne's successful amendment. Of course not. Osborne didn't have a minimum screening process when he was coaching Nebraska, either.

That means guys like NBA star Juwan Howard could qualify to mentor American kids. With almost no criminal record, Howard seems like the model of decorum as the NBA's national spokesperson for Reading is Fundamental. But apparently he doesn't think responsibility is fundamental. Even though he set up a foundation to help underprivileged youth, he didn't help his own underprivileged son. His ex-girlfriend in Detroit was forced to go on welfare to feed and clothe their son, while the government had to sue this multimillionaire (who makes over $12 million a year!) to recoup welfare money paid by hard-working, taxpaying regular guys to raise Juwan's son. Maybe he could help raise troubled youth – in Osborne's world.

Or how about O.J. Simpson? Recently hit with felony and misdemeanor charges in a road rage incident, Simpson told "New Yorker Magazine" that if he saw his murdered wife Nicole, he'd pull over his car and hit on her – "If she had a different head." Charming. He could "mentor" your kids about that. Or how to look for the real killers.

Then there are all of the mentor-athletes in the Osborne tradition who frequented the Gambino Family Mafia-run Gold Club strip joint in Atlanta. Manager Thomas "Ziggy" Sicignano fingered Dennis Rodman, Jerry Stackhouse, Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller and Terrell Davis, among those for whom he's arranged illegal sexual favors with dancers. Maybe they can "mentor" your child a thing or two.

There are lots of great candidates for Osborne's new tax-funded mentoring program: Darryl Strawberry, Steve Howe and former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin – recently indicted on cocaine possession, his second coke-related indictment in five years. He can teach kids how to "Just Say Blow." Maybe even Osborne's colleague, Congressman Gary Condit, would work. He voted for Osborne's amendment and seemed to mentor young women in Washington very well.

In 1999, when Bill Clinton was on his "New Markets" tour to encourage business development in poor urban and rural areas, he appeared at Malcom X Shabazz High School in Newark, New Jersey to announce his enlistment of major sports leagues and their players to reach out to the underprivileged children of impoverished neighborhoods, as examples,
mentors, and "visionaries ... who can reach out to young people and lead them on a path to college and a better life."

It was as ridiculous as Clinton, Monica's boyfriend himself, becoming a kids' role model.

But under Tom Osborne's new program, Clinton would qualify.

How convenient. I hear he's looking for a new job.