Are Athletes Role Models?

Link to the article:

http://www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com/Pro-athletes-as-role-models/

On September 20^th we discussed athletes as a role model.  In Coakley’s text on page 112, he discusses people growing up in sport have trouble translating what they learned from sport into the real world.  The article I read was written from an ex-professional basketball player who doesn’t understand why the media makes out athletes as role models for kids.  What we want in a role model is someone who is honest, committed, fairness, has high morals, and good self-image.  So what does being a great athlete have to do with being a role model?  As Coakley states on page 112, the Adler brothers discovered that most athletes learned how to set goals, focus their attention on specific tasks, and learned to succeed in basketball.  In basketball is the key word there, as the athletes didn’t know how to apply those same concepts to the real world.  If athletes could translate what they did in sport in real life, then we possibly should view them as role models.

"A person whose behavior in a particular
social setting is imitated by others,
especially by younger persons."

For some reason, the amazing athletic ability of someone makes people and the media think of them as a hero.  This heroic status makes the media want to believe that they are supposed to be role models for everybody. "A person whose behavior in a particular social setting is imitated by others, especially by younger persons." This is the Webster's definition of role model.  So yes, athletes should be role models in the confines of the sport world and not in life.  The media also talks about the negatives of athletes and rarely talks about the positive things that some athletes do.  Why talk about Ben Roethlisberger and his off the field conduct when you can talk about Max Stark’s charitable work?  The media needs to show kids the real role models in the sport world, someone the kids can really model themselves after.  For the most part athletes should not be role models for kids, but rather entertainers they love to watch.