Sports Illustrated released an insane profile of Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon Thursday, and a couple of the details are unbelievable.
The profile written by Ben Baskin revealed that Gordon was clearing $10,000 a month while selling drugs in college, and that the superstar receiver was regularly drunk and high pretty much every day while in high school.
The most interesting part comes about Gordon’s past with firearms and shootings. Baskin wrote the following:
Every weekend, he says, a fight would break out and there’d be a flurry of bullets; he caught one in the left arm during his junior year. Gordon says he never “maliciously” shot anyone, but he often had to shoot “to get out, to cause some type of hesitation—a pause so you could keep moving.” He says he sold drugs, mostly weed and mostly at school, “to feed myself.” But the majority of his income came from counterfeit money. The gang would spend $100 to get $2,000 in fake currency, Gordon says, then he would go to McDonald’s and buy five $1 cheeseburgers with a large bill in order to get the legit change.
This is absolutely mind-boggling. Imagine being a superstar athlete on the football field, and at the same time slinging drugs and firing shots during gun battles. I never knew he’d been shot before. This makes his comeback so much more incredible.
Serving NFL suspensions for substance policy violations seems like nothing compared to getting shot while a teenager and being a major drug mover. Hopefully his story serves as a lesson to other young men who find themselves in similar positions.
Forget about football — he is simply lucky to be alive. The fact that he now gets a shot at NFL redemption is just a bonus.