You Just. Don't. Know.

Just when you thought the world of sports would go unscathed despite death's recent celebrity wave throughout the end of June, comes the tragic story of former NFL quarterback, Steve McNair.

As if we needed a refresher course in athlete-worship after the heels of OJ Simpson and the 15-year anniversary of the murders of Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Many in Nashville, and around the country for that matter, are in mourning having lost a man who meant so much to his community, after doing what his predecessor, Hall of Fame QB Warren Moon, could not do in Houston: bring the Oilers-Titans franchise within one yard short of tying Super Bowl XXXIV in their 23-16 loss to the St. Louis Rams.

Moon, for all his greatness and Grey Cup titles in Canada, didn't bring the franchise within a game of the Super Bowl.

McNair left Division I-AA Alcorn State with high praise, despite question marks on whether a quarterback from a "lesser" division of college football had what it took to be a franchise player on a team that just relocated its franchise after playing before empty seats in the Astrodome.

McNair left his mark, proving that he could play in the NFL, and continued the legacy of players like Moon, creating more opportunities for African-American quarterbacks and became only the second black quarterback to start pro football's greatest contest.

Aside from McNair's untimely and shocking death comes questions on why this happened. The Nashville police department has ruled his death a homicide, while the demise of the young lady found dead in the same condo has yet to be classified. And as more and more details are revealed, McNair's innocence in death becomes overshadowed by the actions that may have led to it.

McNair, a married man with four kids reportedly co-registered a Cadillac Escalade with Sahel Kazem, a birthday present for the 20 year-old mistress.

If this isn't a good lesson in keeping athletes in their place as just athletes and not gods or role models, then fans will forever be disappointed.

Everyone can be a great guy, on paper and through television interviews and generosity through public philanthropy. But nobody really knows the truth about anyone else--not even your neighbors--let alone those whose jerseys we wear.

Perhaps McNair and his wife were going to get divorced. Nobody knows when or how their marital woes began, if they had any at all. Nobody really knows what Mrs. McNair may or may not have been doing, if everybody involved was perfectly happy the way things were until July 4th, or what led the former quarterback to pursue a "gumar" on the side.

A person can do whatever he or she wants in this life, and the consequences are his or her business. But if the police aren't pursuing any suspects, haven't ruled on the death of Kazem, found a pistol under her body which she reportedly purchased, have countless pictures of the couple together, and now have reports from the Nashville Post of a different woman confronting McNair at a bar that night, accusing him of slipping her "roofies" once upon a time, then it doesn't take Inspector Gadget to figure out what the consequences of his actions ultimately became.

Steve McNair was a great quarterback. Either painstaking or poor public relations work can create an image, but from afar, it's pretty simple.

Pro athletes are just great athletes. For all our sakes, nothing more, nothing less.

Now the body of this great athlete lays lifeless, while his most important job on this planet as a husband and father now lies vacant.

This isn't to judge McNair. We're all human. We all have choices. We all make them. It's our business and nobody else's until we each find our ways to the box or the urn. Maybe McNair's wife had no issues with his double-life. Maybe she did.

At the end of each day, and at the end of our lives, we all have to answer this question, regarding the circumstances that dictate the life we lead or leave:

Was it worth it?