I have been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. I would listen to all the stories my grandpa and dad would tell me that they experienced of their favorite players and games they witnessed when they were younger.

I remember seeing Sid Bream slide across home plate in the 1992 National League Championship Series to send the Atlanta Braves to the World Series.

I watched in amazement as  Joe Carter hit a 3-run walk-off home run one year later to secure the Toronto Blue Jays’ second consecutive World Series title by defeating the Philadelphia Phillies in game six.

In those two instances, I saw something that I rarely see today in sports: passion.

Bream and Carter—and the rest of their teammates for that matter— played the game because they loved to. Today, you see many athletes play the game because of the paycheck they get.

I understand that the idea behind professional sports is to get a paycheck you wouldn’t be able to in any other field of work and that’s OK.

What isn’t is the self-entitlement many athletes think they deserve and the constant circus they create when they publicly complain about the contract they are not receiving from their employer.

What’s more commonly overlooked in situations like that is the fact that most of the fans that follow their favorite professional teams would trade anything—in most cases literally—to go out and play for the team they cheer for every season.

It may be just me, but I would gladly settle playing baseball every fourth day for about $800,000 a season. That’s fine with me.

It has become such a problem that in the past couple of years, I have really cut back on watching professional sports, in favor of college sports instead.

I did this because I can just tell by watching kids my age play, that there is still a love there for the game.

College basketball is better than the NBA. College football is better than the NFL.

Why? Because the kids out there on the courts and the fields believe that there is still something to play for.

There are times where I catch myself and realize that in two to three years, a majority of those athletes I watched play sports in college, will suddenly transform into the money-hungry, self-centered, prima donnas that dominate the pro sports scene today.

Vincent Jackson, Brett Favre, LeBron James, Carmello Anthony. All these guys would argue the fact that they love the game they play.

In hindsight, none of them do. That’s why Jackson is sitting out and letting his boys lose in San Diego. That’s why Favre is hurting his Minnesota Vikings, more than helping, on their way to being the third best team in the NFC central.

James and Anthony are no better. One earlier this summer, had “The Decision” broadcast on ESPN that eventually turned him into a more hated man than Ron Artest in an Indiana Pacer uniform.

The other is regularly in the media, demanding his way out of Denver, hoping he winds up in Chicago. I hope he winds up in Seattle with their NBA franchise. Yes, I know they don’t have one anymore, that’s the point.

Today, you can rarely find a major athlete today that you can approach on the street and ask for an autograph or stop and talk to.

 Athletes seem to put fans and the media on with how much they love the spotlight, but they only love it when it benefits them. If they can’t get anything from it, then it doesn’t matter.

I wish the attitudes of athletes would go back to the days that my father and grandfather so fondly recalled.  

They weren’t as concerned with the paycheck they were making. They were happy to play the game they loved since they were children and loved the fact that they were playing for fans that would show up day after day to cheer them on.

Once today’s athletes get past the idea of being better than the fans that watch them, maybe you will begin to see a change.

If they don’t, then they will continue to alienate those who bring in their paychecks to watch them play and create more fans like me who have had enough.