It’s going to be at least a couple years before Maxx Crosby has a chance to sign his second NFL contract. But the second-year Raiders defensive end already knows how he wants to spend that money.
He wants to open a Pit Bull rescue.
After a rookie season with 10 sacks, ‘Mad Maxx’ has designs on staying in the NFL for a long time. And being that he was selected in the fourth round, his rookie contract is not nearly enough for such a venture.
When Crosby recently tweeted out that he was going to start a Put Bull rescue “one day,” it didn’t necessarily sound like a statement anyone would hold him to. And if so, maybe it was something for down the road a ways, perhaps after retirement. But Crosby is absolutely serious about it and he means as soon as possible.
“I’m 100% gonna do it. That’s definitely something I’m going to do,” Crosby told Raiders Wire of his plans on starting a Pit Bull rescue. “I think second contract, definitely, once I have a little bit more money in my pocket and I can get that going.”
Crosby didn’t come to this decision lightly. He and his girlfriend have three Pit Bulls already — Brooklyn, Leo, and Durk — and plan to get a fourth next year.
“I rescued my first one in my last year at school,” Crosby continued. “Once I got my first one, now we’re obsessed. Then I got my big XL pit (Durk) from West Virginia and we just rescued another one once we got to Vegas. So we’ve been getting one every single year over the last three years. So, that’s definitely something I’d like to do to save a lot of dogs and get them to the right place.”
Pit Bulls are labeled by many as so-called “vicious killing machines.” From there, the issues the breed has with public perception begin to snowball. They can attract the wrong kind of owners, who mistreat them or abandon them. For that reason, among others, a great many end up in shelters where they get passed up by potential adopters, often out of often misplaced fear.
“They’re some of the harder to place dogs just because of the misconceptions of a bully breed of a Pit Bull,” said Jennifer Peabody, a registered Veterinary Technician and Animal Welfare Professional for 25 years. “The adults stay in your adoption program a lot longer than some of the other fluffy breeds.
“We have a [Pit Bull breed] dog that we brought in, sweet girl . . . and there’s just nobody adopting her and we don’t know why. Is it because of her breed? Could be. We even have pictures of her playing in sprinklers.”
This contradiction between perception and reality is something to which a 6-5, 273-pound defensive end can certainly relate.
“I look at Pit Bulls like I look at myself,” said Crosby.
“Personality-wise, I feel like from the outside a lot of people think I’m angry. Everybody goes ‘Mad Maxx! He’s this big, bad son of a bitch.’ On the field that’s what I am. I play my ass off, I don’t take crap from anybody and that’s how I play,” he said. “But as a person off the field, I’m a big teddy bear, I talk to everybody, I try to be cool with everyone, I try to have great relationships with people. I’m just a soft-spoken good person. That’s who I try to be and that’s how I feel like Pit Bulls are. They get this rap, people say all these [things] ‘they got lockjaw’ which is a myth, that’s not even true, and also that they’re these fighting dogs and blah blah blah, but that’s just not what they are. Some dogs are raised like that and they’re forced into doing that, but that’s not what they want to do, that’s not what the majority of Pit Bulls are. . . They’re misrepresented and I take it personally because I got three of them. I just want to show people they’re actually great dogs.”
Putting together a Pit Bull rescue is a noble task. And certainly takes an investment. But being an advocate for rescue Pit Bulls is a great first step. Using his platform as an NFL player to educate people about Pit Bulls and other bully breeds goes a long way.
Crosby loves his Pit Bulls. He sees them as the perfect family dogs. And he hopes his experience will convince a few others of the same.
“It starts with people getting to see the dogs,” said Crosby. “That starts with social media and having people in the building and seeing how good the dogs are and how you can rehabilitate some of these days. And that’s what I’ll try to do. Just get the word out that they’re great dogs. They’re not just these crazy, off-tempered kind of dogs. I just want to show people that they are great dogs and that will definitely be a part of my plan is getting to show people how they really are.”
When thinking of animal rescue efforts and the Raiders, the first person who comes to mind is former CEO Amy Trask.
As a lawyer, NFL team CEO, and board member of Tony LaRussa’s Animal Rescue Foundation, Trask seemed the perfect person to ask about such things. So, I did. She offered some salient advice to Crosby or any other pro player with such ambitions.
“I don’t want to in any way rain on his parade about starting his own. And if ultimately his heart is in starting his own, that’s terrific,” said Trask in a phone conversation Wednesday morning. “But if his heart is simply, ‘I want to save dogs and I don’t care whether it’s my proprietary rescue service specifically,’ then I think he might look into teaming up with an existing Pit Bull rescue.”
The financial investment required to start a rescue is the reason Crosby is waiting until his second NFL contract to tackle it. But even then, Trask warns that a new startup would mean a lot of those finances and efforts would end up going to things other than rescuing Pit Bulls.
“To start his own rescue is a very, very big undertaking,” Trask continued, “both from a legal standpoint to make sure you get 501(c)(3) status, from a tax standpoint, a business standpoint, a management standpoint, all of that takes a lot of resources of time and money.
“I would start looking at Pit rescues if I were him and saying, ‘Look, I can drive a lot of attention to this, I can drive a lot of excitement about this. I have plenty of people. Heck, I have Raider Nation, or at least those who care about rescuing animals. . . I, Maxx, can bring tremendous resources to you, let’s team up.’ That’s what I would advise him.”
Trask cautions that should Crosby decide to team up with an existing rescue, to be extremely careful and make sure that rescue is reputable and has a high Charity Navigator rating, which means a significant amount of the proceeds go to the cause they are promoting.
The first rescue group that comes to mind for me when I think of Pit Bull rescues is Best Friends, which saved and rehabilitated many of the dogs that were taken from the dog-fighting ring on Mike Vick’s property back in 2008. The Best Friends animal sanctuary is in Southern Utah, about 200 miles northeast of Las Vegas. They also opened a couple of no-kill shelters in Los Angeles a few years ago.
A couple of local Las Vegas Pit Bull rescue groups that come highly recommended include the Samadhi Legacy Foundation and Lone Woof Rescue – both of which specialize in animal rescues, no-kill shelters, and educating the public on the unfair stigma associated with “Bully Breeds”
There are a lot of avenues for Crosby to use his passion and his platform to get Pit Bulls adopted, many of which he can do right now, even before he has the financial wherewithal to make a major investment in starting a rescue of his own. His heart is in the right place, and that’s the perfect starting point.