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| No | 56% | 5 votes | Total: 9 votes | |
| Yes | 44% | 4 votes |
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Add to FavoritesShould Notre Dame two-sport star Tom Zbikowski give up boxing and stick to football? Should a student give up chemistry, and stick to history? You've got to be joking! Why can't Tom do both, isn't this America? Some professional athletes compete in the Olympics, all rules are out the window. Professional vs amateur, it happens all the time now.
Does Zbikowski compete in boxing matches during football season? I don't think so! Charlie Weis (his football coach) would never allow it, and rightly so. Concentrate on one sport at a time. Getting injured in one sport may not let you play the other. If you are playing for a professional team, your contract will stipulate what you can, and cannot do.
Tom is not a professional athlete, he can do what he wants. As long as he isn't involved playing for a university during the season he has been given a scholarship for. He must be a tough kid to be involved with these two vicious sports. In fact I live in his hometown, but I do not have any connection to him. His name is very popular here, and the people root for him. I hate Notre Dame, but I hope he does well. If he boxes, I'm on his side.
I just can't understand why people want to limit others from what they are allowed to do. We have had two sport stars before such as, Bo Jackson, Dion Sanders as well as many others. Why not Tom Zbikowski ? Maybe someone is playing the race card? Calm down, I'm only kidding. I'm trying to figure out why someone would think of this debate?
Maybe he will become a professional football player, and make lots of money. At the same time he could box, and pile it on the football money. That's it, jealousy. I don't think so. Maybe Tom's mother proposed this debate. She only wants to protect her "baby." Nah , that would still leave him playing one really tough sport. I'm even running out of things to say about this topic.
Maybe this debate was started by someone that wants to be his agent for a particular sport. Wait a minute, two sports, two agents. This is a fight between the agents, to get Mr. Zbikowski to sign with them, based on what we the people want to see him participate in. This could be the biggest conspiracy theory of the year, or the decade. Wait until the results of this debate hits the news stands, and magazines. TOMMY Z, WHICH WILL IT BE?
Doesn't the poor twenty year old collge kid have enough to think about when he reads the papers? Would you want your kid to see his name in print with this story. He has enough problems with Notre Dame having its worst football season ever (I love that part).
So should Notre Dame's Tommy Zbikowski two-sport star Tom Zbikowski give up boxing and stick to football? I say, GET A LIFE! Try to be good at one thing if you can. If you're blessed with the ability to be good at two, go for it. Don't let others hold you back.
Learn more about this author, Harvey Stelman.
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Yes
Don't get me wrong I love two-sports stars as much as the next guy. I enjoyed watching Bo Jackson slam a 400 foot home run in Kansas City and then bowl over Brian Bosworth in the NFL. But in the end, Bo was lucky that he is still able to walk, after a career ending injury in the NFL, and one wistfully thinks about the career that might have been in baseball. There have been others like Danny Ainge, Deion Sanders or Michael Jordan who have tried the same thing with different degrees of success. Still, no one has been highly successful at juggling two different and distinct careers in pro sports, what makes us think that Tom Zbikowski is the exception to the rule?
Zbikowski is a gifted athlete no doubt, but does the pursuit of a professional boxing career hurt his chances of becoming a premier safety in the NFL some day? Sure he was a 3rd string All-American a few years ago. Yes, he anchors and is captain of a Notre Dame defense that was mediocre at best last season. And yes, he did it all while pursing a boxing career. After 90 fights as an amateur in which he won 75, "Ziggy" turned pro. Thanks to an NCAA rule that allows him to do so and keep his football eligibility, he had his first pro fight at Madison Square Garden in the spring of 2006.
But after putting on weight for boxing, and later injuring his shoulder playing football, Zbikowski's season was not up to par with his 2005 effort. He went from having 5 pickoffs to not getting any last year, and his punt return average dropped 5 yards. The whole season was a marked disappointment for the hard nose safety, who admits that at times he was not as hungry out on the football field as before. Did he lose some of that edge to the boxing ring? You bet.
So he is back for his senior season. He says he is hungry again. He says that he has something to prove to himself. He says this has nothing to do with raising his stock for the NFL draft, though in part, that is hard to believe. Yet we want to believe him. We want to believe that he has in part learned his lesson out on the boxing ring and that he is ready to settle into what he does best, which is anchor the defensive backfield for Notre Dame. Let's hope then that boxing hasn't ruined one of the best safeties in the college game.
Learn more about this author, Rolando Cruz.
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