Can Kids Admire Athletes

Charles Barkley advised us all years and years ago that he was not a role model. He has worked hard since then to prove to us he spoke the truth. Does an athlete have a responsibility to live his life to a standard deemed acceptable to society.

Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez, Michael Vick, Roger Clemens, do we have any reason to expect that any athlete can live up to the scrutiny of our media. How many of us living with the wealth, power and facilitators these athletes have could live a life to be proud to tell Mom about.

I have told my children that your models of behavior should be people you doing the right thing. Your parents, teachers, police officers and such. Of course many of these people fall down to. So who is a hero. What is a hero.

Superman does not exist anymore. The superhero movies we see now always show the hero with a dark side. The lines are grey everywhere. Very little is black and white defined, everything is shades of gray.

For me during games I always point out sportsmanship when we see it. Football games where the players celebrate like they just won the game after making a tackle, basketball players thumping their chest when they make a basket. I am old school, excitement has its place but act like you have been there before.

We can name a list of athletes that we think are admirable. We then wait for the next sports bulletin and hope that what we hear is about this athlete we have held up as a role model. Politics is the same, but are the politicians different now or is the relationship between the press and the pursued as it were different. My guess is much more of the latter than the former. Would JFK have become President in todays culture. Never, not a chance.

I do not know who a hero is. It was simpler when I was a kid, I do not recall ever having a hero of mine when I was little become a non hero after the fact. Today it is an everyday event.

I still like Tim Wakefield. I hope that he is not taking steroids to throw that 65 mph knuckleball. I think I am safe. Do you?