Athletes are not Role Models

I remember growing up and idolizing athletes as role models, someone I wanted to be like when I grew up. The popular athletes such as Karl Malone, John Stockton, John Elway, and Terrell Davis. All of these guys seemed like stand-up guys who tried to keep their personal lives out of the media. These days news travels fast, especially personal news with the rise of social media and ease of Internet access. Today athletes are all over the news and not for their accomplishments in their respective sports. The two latest cases have been Knowshon Moreno of the Denver Broncos and Aldon Smith of the San Francisco 49ers both being arrested for DUIs. These are just the latest two examples in a long string of bad examples in not only football, but baseball and basketball. You have Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg four years ago, Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant's infidelity, Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez testing positive for steroids and unfortunately the list goes on and on.

The point is none of today's athletes are worthy of being our kids' role models. The pressure is just too great and they seem to only respond well to in-game pressure. We need to call it like it is and stop putting this kind of pressure on today's athletes because they are no better equipped to handle it than we are to play professional sports. Rare is the athlete who is good at sports and can handle the pressure of being said role model for people. It just does not happen any more, especially because most of the athletes are still kids themselves. A lot of them have gone from very bad family situations or financial situations and all of a sudden come into a ton of money and have no way of knowing how to handle that amount of money they receive.

Parents need to teach their kids not to look up to the famous people of today's society because in no way, shape, or form are they the people should be modeling their lives after. We seem to be living in a society of get rich quick schemes and then blow your money on all sorts of different things you don't need. Gone are the days of hard work, struggle, and the American dream. It is definitely still fun to watch them play on the field and they are great athletic examples, just not examples of what we want to be in life.

Granted their are several great examples in the world of sports, they are not just not as prevalent as all of the bad examples. To succeed we need to find our own way and the way is not shown by professional athletes. If nothing make sure you teach your children to follow your own example or at least teach them how to distinguish between a good example and a bad one. That at least is our responsibility to society and more important to our children.