Sam Hurd is in jail in Seagoville, awaiting sentencing. Wednesday, he will probably learn he will spend the rest of his life in jail for drug trafficking. Peter King’s The Monday Morning Quarterback site has a great story about how Hurd started trafficking in drugs, and how it all went wrong. And there is a decent chance that Hurd was small-time and, while guilty of some things, not to the level of a life sentence. Here is a taste:
For the last three or four years of his NFL career he smoked high-grade California marijuana “all day, every day, and I didn’t want to hear anyone trying to tell me I had a problem,” he says.
“Whatever was considered the loudest weed in California—I wanted a notch above that,” Hurd explains in a white cinder-block interview room in Seagoville, with only a hint of the pride he used to express on the subject. “I had educated myself on different strains and potencies and growing techniques. I was very selective. It was like wine.”
Most of the marijuana Hurd had shipped in from California, he says, he smoked himself or shared at cost with friends, including 20 to 25 teammates spanning his five years with the Cowboys. A two-year federal investigation into Hurd’s activities conducted by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division has produced no evidence that Hurd made a profit selling this marijuana. “I was what you call love,” he explains, using the slang for those who provide marijuana to friends without keeping score. “I’m in the NFL, and I’m gonna ask people for a few hundred dollars on top of what I paid for it? Nah. Slide me what I got it for and take it. Enjoy it.”
How it got from then to now is worth a read.
