Why be a Holdout?

In this day and age it is not uncommon for rookie professional athletes(particularly in the NFL) to hold out prior to signing their initial contract in order to pressure the team to give them the money they want. Lets take, for example this years number one overall pick, Jamarcus Russell, who has yet to sign a deal with only two days remaining before the Raiders season opener. NFL Network's Adam Schefter reported today that "It will be their first face-to-face meeting in almost two weeks", the term "their" referring to both, the Raiders and Russell's representatives. For the most part we have been seeing one or two holdouts like this for each of the past few years, but why? What is it with the young men these days, that they feel that they have the right to try and leach every possible cent out of a huge contract that realistically, they will not even complete for one reason or another. The only real problem is, that with the salary cap, in order for the young, talented and yet unproven player to get what he wants; often times it is the proven veteran players who's salaries suffer. And lets be reassured that this does not happen solely in the sports world, although the most well known situation, not nearly the most common. How many teenagers out there claim that the reason that they don't have a job, is because they can't find one that is exactly what they want, for the pay they want? Then once they finally get hired, they don't take into consideration that there are much more qualified people out there, who probably would have been willing to do the same work, but for less money. I feel that people should be more grateful that someone is even giving them the opportunity to make a good living, and in an athlete's, a great living; doing something that they claim to enjoy doing. Hopefully the NFL, and other major sports organizations, can come up with some kind of policy that will limit the amount of athletes that hold out, because in the end they are not only hurting the team and their teammates, but themselves as well.