Don’t look now … I said don’t look, but the Jesper Parnevik effect is spreading to a closet near you. Last Sunday, golfer Annika Sorenstam (another Swede) showed off a Jesper side at the Nabisco Championships, wearing a new pair of red golf shoes.

Yeah, red.

I couldn’t decide who was winning the women’s first major of the year, Bozo the Clown or Dorothy (with no Toto beside her). I know that abuse of some substances is illegal, but couldn’t we extend that to fashion sense?

One in a Second Chance

It amazes me sometimes how some athletes can take so much abuse and still come back day after day for more punishment. It also gets me how others just plain abuse their privileges and still are sought- after.

One such person, Darryl Strawberry, will be sentenced on the 18th of this month for violating rules of the Phoenix House drug treatment facility. His house arrest at the facility stems from his long-standing battle with drug use.

While Strawberry is a prominent athlete brought down by his own vices, he’s not the only one who has seen more than his share of trouble.

Other sports “heroes”, including Lawrence Taylor, Dwight Gooden, John Daly and Dennis Rodman have been scrutinized for their behavior off the field of play.

What disturbs me is that teams, media and the general public will give these people second chances to achieve that superstar status before they can get back to being “normal,” happy people.

Gooden and Taylor have also had numerous problems with drug addiction and run-ins with the law. Yet Strawberry and Gooden both played for the New York Yankees in 1996, a team that won the World Series. This was well after both former Mets had displayed problems with drugs.

Taylor’s battles with hard drugs have been well-documented. After several instances involving NFL suspensions and jail time, Taylor is still a headliner, whether it be in a big-screen movie like “Any Given Sunday” or leading off some local celeb segment with an arrest for buying cocaine.

Dennis Rodman is just a mental case, plain and simple. A core member of the “Bad Boys” crew from the late ’80s Detroit Pistons, Rodman has gone over the line.

In fact, he has no line, displaying behaviors such as flagrant fouls, kicking cameramen in the junk and swearing worse than sailors painting the town red.

Even with these traits, teams salivated over a chance to try and settle the “Worm” into a world where lunacy was left far away from the rebounding bliss they sought.

Let’s not forget his failed attempt at a movie career.

How many people saw “Double Team” again? Wait a minute, don’t raise your hands. It’s probably better that you guys remain unknown.

Then there’s the bizarre case of John Daly – the everyman’s champ that couldn’t get his drinking problem under wraps for quite a while.

He’s had mental breakdowns on the course and non-stop binges off. Through the early to mid-’90s, he made off-and-on stops to rehab while the PGA Tour kept letting him play in between.

Finally, Daly was pushed out of the door and into trying to get himself a better life. Now, seemingly over his demons, the long-ball hitter with deft touch is looking to make a name for himself yet again.

In all of these cases, problems are coming from every angle. The players, the media and the general public have not helped any of these profiles, which are just at the tip of many stories of athletes in this type of situation. That’s what I have the problem with, and don’t think that I’m excluding myself, because I too am part of the problem.

When you have a society that tries to live drug-free, lauding people that mess up their lives with hard drugs shouldn’t happen.

The media is also to blame for continuing to address an athlete’s problems after their careers have ended.

The athletes … well, they speak for themselves when they don’t get help to control a problem that can affect more than their own bodies.

Some people have great athletic abilities and it’s a shame that there are those that are willing to involve their talents to the point of collapse.

Absurd Predictions

There’s nothing really happening this week, so you guys won’t receive the normal amount of absurdity today.

However, the first major event of the spring comes next week and the Masters will need time to gear up for all I’ve got.

Jonathan Lowe is a senior in meteorology from Kansas City, Mo.