My father was raised in a small town in Ouachita in the state’s smallest county. It’s not a town that you hear a whole lot about. It is, however, the hometown of two former NFL players. Brothers, in fact. The older brother Luke Dawson was known for being a stand-up guy who was big into helping inner-city kids (despite the fact he was from the sticks) above and beyond what the league called for. His younger brother (over a decade younger), Mack, on the other hand, was known for being a problem case. He was the more talented of the two, but his career kept getting interrupted by team suspensions and trips to jail. When Dad told me this, he was never very specific. He just told me that Mack Dawson was bad news.

On a lark, I decided to look up Mack on a lark to find out more about him. Turns out that everything he got in trouble with was pot. Pot?! Seriously? But yeah. He got arrested for it, suspended for it, and imprisoned for it. I was expecting him to be something more along the lines of Ray Lewis. Well, not the murder part, but maybe assault. With a deadly weapon or something. Or maybe serious drugs.

But no… pot.