The life of a college athlete is essentially broken into 3 sections. One must balance their studies and their athletics while doing their best to establish some sort of social life. Despite your best efforts to give equal time to all three, you will undoubtedly have to sacrifice some of the time you put into one of the three.

But what happens when the college athlete becomes a professional? Academics are immediately erased and the athlete now has an abundance of extra time and energy to put toward their sport, or their social life. Many pros give up alcohol and drugs for their professional career,while  others indulge in the glamourous party scene that comes with the money and fame of being a pro athlete.

Johnny Football, formally known by his birth name Johnny Manziel, has partaken in everything but football in the early stages of his NFL career. The former Texas A&M standout quarterback has taken his talents to frat parties, Drake concerts, and Las Vegas. However he didn’t take his talents to the Peyton Manning Passing Academy this past summer because he was too caught up in the party scene.

It’s not just young guns like Johnny Manziel who have been known to get saucy. Legend says that Wade Boggs, Hall of Fame baseball player, used to knock back 50 to 60 beers on cross country flights. Although he denied the accusation, former teammates have attested to Boggs’ beer drinking ability.

Partying is all fun and games until it kills you, and this is the unfortunate reminder that alcoholism is a terrible disease. Legendary Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle hit over 500 homeruns in his ML B career while successfully balancing his drinking problem with baseball. Coming from a family of men who died young, Mantle was once quoted saying “If I’d known I was gonna live this long, I’d have taken a lot better care of myself.” He died at age 63 after his years of boozing finally caught up to him.

Current professional sports stars like NHL player Patrick Kane and NFL player Rob Gronkowski have found themselves in the media spotlight for their party antics, but both have proven to be elite in their sport. Their dedication to their sport has paid off time after time as Kane and Gronkowski represent a small portion of pro athletes who can truly go all out on the field and in the club. We must remember today’s pro athletes are under 24 hour surveillance, magnifying their mistakes and making it easy to expose their personal life’s.