Tuesday ESPN’s “E:60″ will examine the lengths some people will go to have more athletic kids.
ESPN: “E:60 correspondent Tom Farrey exclusively reports the story about the ultimate effort to buy athletic advantage – the purchase of sperm from anonymous donors who are college athletes. He visits the world’s largest sperm bank, California Cryobank in Los Angeles, where the seed of Division I football, basketball and baseball players sells fast. Farrey also speaks with families who purchased the sperm of a former tight end, and he addresses the question: How do expectations change when parents know their child is born with the DNA of an elite athlete?”
So what type of down-and-outer person, athlete or no, is selling their sperm?
Exactly.
Farrey also has a book out on the subject, and appeared today on KSPN-AM’s “Mason & Ireland” show in Los Angeles today to talk about the ESPN piece.
John Ireland to Farrey: “How many people are breeding kids specifically to be athletes?”
Farrey: “I’m not sure they’re breeding to create elite athletes. They’re folks who are lesbians or same sex couples or mothers who never found mister right or it’s a heterosexual couple who can’t have kids on their own. So, they go to the sperm bank and they go through the catalog. And inevitably, when you’re like, ‘OK, what are we going to pick?’ … you end up picking the stuff you prioritize and you value and there are a lot of people out there who want their kids to have athletic traits.”
The main ethical question when it comes to this game of offspring roulette is if prospective parents should be allowed to know the identity of the sperm donator. So long as they don’t, I don’t see anything wrong with knowing the occupation and/or athletic history of the contributor. Problem is, if someone is donating sperm for money, what’s the odds that individual has a current occupation? (See Todd Marinovich.)
Yes, we’ve all heard over the years about Warren Sapp being a social cripple. Not to mention a man of questionable personal hygiene. So with that, I was delighted today at his selection to the latest lineup of “Dancing With The Stars”. Though I would love to see him plague survive the entire competition, that might be a little too much to ask, considering he’ll be dragging around a hazmat-suited partner.
In all seriousness, one media source close to the Raiders told me today that Sapp has always been known for raging, 100-yard halitosis. In particular, one veteran defensive lineman for the Raiders used to bark out “Breath!” whenever Sapp walked into a room or on the team plane.
That eventually lead to the team’s primary rallying cry last season: “BREATH! BREATH! BREATH!”
Sapp thought it was funny, but didn’t know the joke was on him and would bark it out too.
Coincidentally, when Marinovich was quarterbacking the club, the team’s rallying cry was, “METH! METH! METH!”
OK, I made that last part up. Read more…
