Devin Isler Emilia Grant English 1102 April 8, 2014 Should Professional Athletes Be Considered Role Models Life

in America today is very unique. There are a ton of different career options, lifestyle options, and food options; basically, you can live life however you want as long as you do not break any laws. With this being said, is every single citizen held to the same standards. What I mean by this is, does a person living in the slums have the same things and live the same way as someone living in Beverly Hills? The answer is obviously no, it is impossible for lower class citizens to live like upper class citizens. In this paper I will show how my research findings have developed into solidified facts and opinions that are very similar to my own opinions on the topic. At first my inquiry was just about athletes being over-paid, but with more research, it transformed into how their hugely unnecessary salaries and celebrity statuses impact America and the lives of its citizens. These impacts lead me to wonder; should people look up to professional athletes as role models? As I prove with facts from my sources, these impacts are both positive and negative and are not just happening in America. For example, the most popular global sport is soccer. Billions of people are impacted by this great sport almost every day. Todd Pheifer backs this up with his article from Sporting 360 about professional sports in America. He talks about how sports bring a civic pride in the home cities of

teams. Fans will paint their faces and wear jerseys of their favorite players and will even skip work to attend home games or away games depending on where they live. But is all of this necessary? The average professional athlete brings entertainment and joy to the fans in the city/state/country for which he or she plays; is that enough to be paid more than a teacher? For example, most professional athletes make between six and seven figures a year. This is much more than the average working citizen. According to USNEWS, the average high school teacher makes fifty-five thousand a year, and they are teaching generation after generation the skills needed in order to excel in life. The economy is a major factor here; professional sports play a big role in Americas booming economy. The National Football League is a multibillion-dollar corporation, which translates to a pretty substantial impact on society as a whole. This means thousands of available jobs and entertainment not only nationwide, but globally. When people buy tickets to games, or jerseys of their favorite players, or even a hotdog at the ballpark, that is all money circulating throughout the economy that would not be there without professional sports. Sports fans worldwide are plenty comfortable with spending money on their favorite professional teams. They spend hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars a year just to watch their teams play, and when it comes to big businesses and corporations, some have been known to shell out six figures a year to entertain there clients in VIP suites and luxury box seats.

Sports are a big part of culture around the world, especially in todays era and especially in America. I believe that it is fair to say that professional sports have been tightly woven into the fabric of todays American society(Pheifer). Some people do not pay attention to the world of sports because they simply do not care. That is fair, why waste your time with something you truly do not care about? I personally do care about sports and the world they have created for my generation. I think that the world of sports and professional athletes has a major influence on the lives of children and teens growing up. As children, individuals usually have an icon or a hero that they look up to; some say firemen, some say Superman or other fictional heroes and some say professional athletes. As a kid, I grew up loving the game of soccer. I played on teams for travel clubs and for my schools. I would watch games on television whenever I could and marvel at the talent and beauty of the sport. My senior year of high school I scored the winning goal in overtime in the conference finals which sent my school to the state tournament. Now in college, I go to every home varsity soccer game. I had two icons, or heroes, growing up. My first was the great Brazilian, Ronaldinho. The way he moved the ball with such speed and control almost like magic, brought defenders to their knees. Ronaldinho played for my favorite team, FC Barcelona. He scored countless goals and made numerous other players famous by just raising their confidence. He truly was the best in the world during his time at Barcelona. My second icon was and still is Lionel Messi, who also plays for Barcelona. As a teenager, Messi had the great privilege to play alongside Ronaldinho who in my opinion was one of his own icons and heroes.

Messi, much like his old mentor, has an amazing gift for controlling not only the ball, but also the entire game. Two years ago he scored around one hundred goals in a calendar season, blowing the previous goal record out of the water. He has won multiple trophies with Barcelona and was named player of the year three years in a row. All of this leads to how big players, like my idols, impact the lives of everyday regular people. For myself, it was a positive impact, but for some it can result in a negative impact. The effect on the economy is a positive impact, and one of many, but negative impacts do also exist. Players that are the most popular are usually the highest paid, but it is what they do with their money that makes them a negative impact on America. Most average citizens spend their money on food and clothes and other necessities, or they save it in order to pay the mortgage and other bills that become present later in life. The President of the United States of America makes four hundred thousand dollars a year and he runs and protects an entire country, one of the most successful in the world (Patel). In 2013, Tiger Woods made $78.1 million, and most of that was from endorsements and commercial deals according to Forbes. Tiger is a great golfer, one of the best ever, but does he really deserve that much money? If I ever made that much I would not know what to do with it, and neither do the people that receive it. That is why they blow it on expensive cars and houses and jewels. All of this money leads to trouble, and it is no surprise that lots of professional athletes run into trouble in there lives. Everyone remembers the trouble that Tiger got into. He had a perfect life, tons of money, and a beautiful wife, but it was not enough. That is the problem, professional athletes

always want more and more, when they are given enough money to buy anything they want, it makes them want more. On the contrary, some professional athletes use their memory for good and to benefit others in need. Players from the National Football League will donate to charities or work with the league and its Play60 program that gets kids outside and active for exercise trying to get rid of childhood obesity. These are the positive impacts, the athletes that use their money and popularity to do good things for others. They inspire young children to grow up and be successful, to follow their dreams and work hard. What impact does all of this have on the younger generations and future generations? Well, kids are growing up admiring all the great stars of the favorite sport. They all want to be the next big quarterback or the next first round point guard. Parents want that for their kids just as much as the kids want it, and this is where it becomes a problem. Only a fraction of the children that play sports actually make it to the professional level, but every parent raises there child as if the are the next big star. Some parents will even make their kids play sports when the child does not want to. I have a first hand example for this being my parents forced my brother to play baseball and he hated it. He would always say he did not feel good hoping they would not make him go to practice, but it never worked. Finally after two or three years of suffering my brother was freed by teams having tryouts, where he would play bad on purpose so that he did not make the team. My parents realized they had been pressuring him into it and apologized, but that is the way of life as an America kid these days,

playing sports. How are children supposed to live with all this pressure and the pressure of succeeding in school and extracurricular activities that they are interested in. Another negative impact from pro athletes as role models is players getting themselves into trouble and, in some cases, getting arrested. Of course the reasons for these cases vary but these individuals are icons, role models, and young individuals look them up to them. They should be held to higher standards and have the professionalism to behave themselves. Armon Gilliam, a former NBA player, wrote an article an article addressing this situation. Professional athletes do not come into the league and ask to be every childs role model, states Gilliam, but it does come with the job and those professionals need to understand that and try to fulfill it as best as they can. This means conducting themselves in a professional manner both on and off the field/court/rink (Gilliam). I am sure that most individuals living in America know or have heard about O.J. Simpson and his murder trials. O.J. was accused of stabbing his estranged wife and her friend but was found not guilty of the murder and set free in 1995. Later in his life he was convicted of kidnapping and armed robbery and sentenced up to 33 years in prison (McCarthy). Another case that is more recent is the arrest of Aaron Hernandez, former tight end for the New England Patriots, for the murder of Odin Lloyd. Hernandez has pleaded not guilty but is being held without bail on one count of murder, two counts of illegal possession of a firearm, two counts of illegal possession of a large capacity firearm and one count of carrying an illegal firearm (McCarthy).

There are countless other cases involving drugs and guns, even a case where former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was arrested for dog fighting (McCarthy). Are these the type of people that kids should be looking up to? Do murders deserve millions of dollars a year to play a sport? Just like Gilliam stated, these individuals who get in trouble did not ask to be a role model to anyone, but it is part of the job as a professional athlete. Gilliam also goes on to talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Roethlisberger, or Big Ben, was accused during his 2008 season of raping a former Lake Tahoe Casino host in Reno, Nevada. The case was settled and dropped, probably involving a monetary settlement, and both parties went their separate ways. But the media did not let the incident go so easily. Multiple sports news channels covered the story for months and talked about how this one action caused Big Ben and the Pittsburgh Steelers to have a bad reputation. This is where Gilliam chimes in again at the defense of professional athletes. The mass media is obsessed with reporting negativity. You rarely ever see a case publicized where a professional athlete does a good deed (Gilliam). A perfect example is again the Ben Roethlisberger case where the media covered over and over his one bad deed, but what about the many honorable things his teammates have done in the community? For example, Max Starks has a charity to which he donates large amounts of his money. Hines Ward and Troy Polamalu do community work numerous times a year. And who can forget about the Jerome Bettis Foundation, which provides a safe and supportive environment for youth to grow and succeed (Gilliam).

To back up Gilliams opinions about the media bringing a negative outlook to professional athletes, I found a video of the Brooklyn Nets head coach Jason Kidd in a post game interview with multiple media reporters. Kidd was asked about a new player that joined the team a few days before the game, Jason Collins. He went on to say how Collins had a strong performance in his first game as a Brooklyn Nets player. Another reporter followed up by asking if Collins was the Nets good luck charm since they won that night. Kidd said that Collins is a basketball player and understands his role on the court, and plays a part in the win just like all of his other teammates. Immediately following that response, Kidd was asked if there were any distractions with Collins recently joining the team. Kidd answered saying, No, we are all basketball players. We are here to play the game and try to win, that is our job. You guys are the distraction. I found this extremely interesting and relevant to my topic because I realized that in most cases, it is the media making the players seem like they should be role models, not the players themselves. Professional athletes should be celebrated for their great talent and ability to compete at a high level night after night, but I do not believe that they should be named role models just because of their athletic talent and celebrity status. While some player do have the necessary qualities to be deemed a role model, other do not; and while it may come with the job, it is really the job of parents to teach their children who should be a role model and what qualities individuals need to posses in order to be role models.

Works Cited Gilliam, Armon. "Pro Athletes As Role Models." Pittsburgh Urban Media. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. "Jason Kidd on Jason Collins & Brooklyn Nets' Win over Lakers." YouTube. YouTube, 24 Feb. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2014. McCarthy, Michael. "Sports, Crime and Money: Pro Athletes Gone Wrong." Sports Business. CNBC, 9 Aug. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. Patel, Tulsi. "Pro Athletes Are Way Overpaid." Daily Herald. N.p., 27 Apr. 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. Pheifer, Todd. "The Impact Professional Sports Have on American Society." Sporting Life 360. N.p., 6 Aug. 2008. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.