Real Life Real Faith Men of Faith May/June Issue | Page 16

Sports Peace
Still Not a Role Model
ALVIN L.A. HORN

“I am not a role model just because I
can dunk a basketball, doesn’t mean I
should raise your kids.” The ad
campaign of a shoe company and
then in his prime,
spokesperson/great basketball player
Charles Barkley was meant to send a
message of non-responsibility. We
heard the message, sports stars have
no responsibilities in how they
conduct themselves outside the lines
of the playing field, and how children
should or shouldn’t perceive sports
figures. The truth was simply, we
should not count on athletes, and or
media stars as people we want our
children to follow as role models.
Some others though thought, why
not, how can we watch sports and
support them with our money and
attention, and not have sports figures
be role models.
In1993 the conversation was near the
top; it was in our faces of who was a
role model. 23 years later, are we still
thinking athletes are role models on
any level? In our faces, we have and
had sports figures laced with
situations of steroids, rapes,
domestic violence, gun issues, and
scandals of adultery, coaches
cheating, and gambling, and
thievery.

One could wonder how come
thievery is on the table as an
athlete. College level players
nowadays are household names,
but they’re still supposed to be
amateur athletes. Either through
ignorance or simple greed we read
all too often about a college athlete
stealing.
Well since they are college kids
making billions for the college
system, but are not paid, let me
lessen the impact of my wording,
and say, some college kids take
things that are not theirs to take.
The massively huge truth is the
college system as it stands, with
them making billions off the sports
feats of kids, are the thieves.
With sports as a whole we love a
good, good-feel-good-story, yet we
all might be better served to focus
on what goes on only on the
playing field instead of what goes
on away from the sports actions.
.

Controversy, questionable-behavior, and
character flaws shine bright when young
men become millionaires. It’s reasonable
to believe any problems highlighted by
money were simmering long before a
player saw a dime. However, money is not
always the fuel to make a player burn
down their career. Two players who
recently played for the Cleveland Browns
have shown money can be the issue or
not. One player was rich before football
and the other player came from meager
means. Both are currently out of football
for drugs or drinking problems - character
flaws. However, it is reasonable to believe
that within hours, days, and a week of you
reading this, somewhere a young man or
woman with a degree or great job, or
someone living from paycheck to
paycheck will walk out of a bar inebriated
and kill someone with his or her car. The
word microcosm and sports are lovers
that will be together for ever. What is the
difference between the athlete we admire
for their ability and or celebrity, and the
average person when character flaws tag
circumstances; well, we look up to sports
figures as important parts of our lives.
The athletes we watch are oftentimes
who we live through. To our children,
sports related people resemble role
models for all the wrong reasons.
Popularity comes in many forms and
reasons. We are all too often seeing the
wrong form and reasons through
troubled sports figures.
We have social media on fire trading
information and misinformation. We have
blogger news websites, other related
news services, and the social commentary
as the judge and jury at the releasing of a
story.
One of the hardest parts for all of us is
when the long time sports figure/role
model that we have admired through the
years get exposed for flaws, and we find
out they had skeletons beating on the
closet door. After their playing days or
near the end of some careers, is when we
come to know of infidelity, outside
children, hidden transgression
suppressed from pay-offs. We all want to
scream, “No not What we see is the 24/7
news cycle of what life is like for sports