It seems only months go by between breaks of another scandal hitting the media as another rose petal falls off the flowers that are the league of extraordinary athletes. These ‘extraordinary athletes’ are elite in their field and share national and international spotlights because of their physical superiority, but aside from their talent, aren’t they just like you and me?Well, a little bit.
Aside from earning ridiculous paychecks and being inordinately famous, which has its pitfalls (or so we hear) these people are still human though right? They still have to drive in traffic, they still cook dinner, they still have bad days, and in classic human fashion, they still make mistakes. So why do we feel we must ostracize everything move they make? And does the 24-hour, glaring spotlight make them a role model by default despite the unexplained circumstances? I think we need to pump the brakes and define what a ‘role model’ actually stands for…
A role model, by definition:
–noun
A person whose behaviour, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, esp. by younger people.
Ahh, okay, so that’s a role model - someone who leads by example by behaving in a particular way that grants them success. Here's a few notes on that. Now it’s just about finding the correlation between a model role-model and a sports superstar.
First up, success – sports stars are very successful. They’ve made it to the top, professional grade. And are making an extremely lucrative income for their efforts. But surely someone just physically talented doesn’t immediately make them a role-model for people to look up to, does it? Unless of course you play whichever sport and wish to play as they do, following them and being a fan of their physically skilled example. And that’s a role that I can understand, and I’m sure most athletes would have no problem with either.
So maybe it’s the role itself that has become distorted. Physical talent has now manifested into an example of how we all ought to live our and our children’s lives. Effectively making an athlete’s gift now bearing the burden of a collective scrutinising set of eyes watching their every move on and off the field.
What I’m getting at is the failure in solid logic that has this fishbowl shift from the respected arenas to personal lives, all in the name of an opportunity to be a ‘role-model’. And the athletes aren't completely in the right – they contributed greatly to this stigma. Not to mention the ample amount of 'role-model' failures. But they let the assumption lie and kept the light shining, swallowing it as part as an obligation of the role as a sports star. Kind of ironic don’t you think?
Charles Barkley was the first to stand up and ‘controversially’ speak out and claim that sports stars weren’t role-models, and made a good point about it too. This is some of the truth he spoke:
"I don't believe professional athletes should be role models. I believe parents should be role models.... It's not like it was when I was growing up. My mom and my grandmother told me how it was going to be. If I didn't like it, they said, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out." Parents have to take better control."And my favourite:
"If I weren't earning $3 million a year to dunk a basketball, most people on the street would run in the other direction if they saw me coming."
And there are far bigger, uglier men playing sports than Charles Barkley that we are all meant to be looking up to under this assumptive conversion from sports role to life role model. Why? Because they can shoulder-charge a man head first into the ground to create a fumble? Or on the flipside, maybe because they’re a team player and represent their country?
Whatever you can conjure up in response, they are there because they can do what they do athletically. And they don’t become my role-model because they can legally assault a man or throw a perfect tight-spiralled pass. If the grass is green, let's play. And if you're not playing, let's enjoy watching them play. Because that is, at the end of the day, what sports stars are famous for.
