Today's Athletes: Good Role Models or Not?

Sports figures are failing as role models today because our values have shifted. Too many of the high profile, highly paid athletes are self-centered. They don't have respect for their sport and probably don't even know its history, not like the greats of yesterday did. Athletes today are freer to do whatever they want. Team owners and managers don't have the pull over them like they used to. Today, money talks more than ever, and all that matters is keeping the star happy and the star keeping the team on a winning track.

The tide actually began to turn a couple of decades ago when free agencies and million-dollar salaries became the norm. I remember baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, who takes great pride in his successes and being a role model for young people, talking about Jose Canseco and how he had the potential to be a great baseball star, but Jose didn't care about the history of the game. He had little respect for those who had gone before him. From all appearances, what mattered to Jose was fast cars, women, and his ego, not necessarily in that order. His career ended prematurely because of his own bad choices.

The 'I' in Jose, that all consuming passion to care only for himself, wasn't confined to baseball. It's everywhere. Self-gratification and greed have taken the place of humility and responsibility. I really believe this is why NASCAR has been so successful as a family sport for the last 15 years or so. The France family which controls the auto racing sport has insisted that its drivers maintain a high level of integrity while in uniform. For example, a driver who uses profanity in an interview after a race is fined. It's image, but the kids see that image, and that's who they want to be. NASCAR encourages interaction with its drivers. Even the highest paid of the bunch, men like Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr., are accessible, signing autographs and posing for pictures, oftentimes just minutes before a race begins.

Our value system and sense of morals have also collapsed in many ways over the years. The drug culture continues in spite of tremendous efforts to thwart it, and under the influence of so-called friends and handlers, stars in the making often make horrendous mistakes. Swimmer Michael Phelps is a keen example of that. On the surface, Phelps looked to be the first real role model for children in quite a while. The Olympic champion had it all - fame, attention, and a chance to be a leader. Even being somewhat of a Mama's boy to an extent, Phelps hasn't really been able to resist the lure of temptation. He's made mistakes. So far, the world has been pretty forgiving, though his sport suspended him for his last breech. One more mistake, and he might not be able to swim his way back.

The media can't be excused from their part in the decline of the role model. Their incessant hunt for a story, their willingness to invent a story if they can't find a real one, their need for 'dirt', and their own self-serving goals which cause them to make a mountain out of a mole hill are factors in the current state of affairs. There was a time that a reporter might have looked the other way at a single aberration. Those days are gone. Many journalists have lost their own integrity, and paparazzi are everywhere. There is no place to hide, especially with money-hungry citizens ready to snap a candid shot with their cell phones and sell it to the highest bidding tabloid.

So, surrounded by a world that as a whole has slipped in what it deems right and wrong, an athlete who lacks strong values of his or her own is ripe to be picked apart by the media. They're also highly susceptible to the egotistical 'I' disease that happens when they became the charmed and catered-to person of the day. Unless they have a strong sense of who they are and desire to really be a positive influence to children and young people, they probably won't be. Some may even end up like Dennis Rodman, an alcoholic who clings to his success as a basketball player years after retiring because his entire self-worth is based on what was. He can't see today because he's knee-deep in addiction. He's not a role model, just as Jose Canseco isn't, either. Phelps could be, but the verdict remains a question until he really decides who he wants to be as a person.

The world needs role models. We need more of Reggie Jackson and Jeff Gordon. Maybe if the million-dollar babies had to grow up before getting their millions, we'd have more of them.