Role Models In Sports: Choose Wisely

In a day in age where the nation's economy is crumbling, unemployment rates are skyrocketing and crimes and criminals litter the news, it's easy to see why professional athletes are frowned upon by many.

After all, they do tend to tease and overwhelm us with their ability to evade the harshest penalties of the law, and their ludicrous contracts. In reality all they're doing is playing a game we all did, many years ago. 

"It's a business," they'll combat.

A sad and unfortunate fact is not all professional athletes are worthy influences. Now, I'm not so naive as to believe that all athletes are poor role models, certainly there are some who display good ethics and morals. But for every Roberto Clemente of the world, there is a Pacman Jones.

Children have enough outlets for mischief as it is. They don't need people who they watch on TV to provide more. Using steroids to gain an upper-edge on competition, athletes using narcotics and coaches and players sputtering words of "over confidence" to the opposition are all messages kids are getting from sports forcing them to re-evaluate just exactly what is right and wrong.

This is wrong.

Studies have shown the younger a person is, the more likely they will change.

It makes sense.

When you're born, you are a pure person. No one has shaped nor influenced you. You are yourself.

As you get older, you hear things. Your brain begins to get saturated with thoughts, and your consciousness begins to form.

A good majority of this is happening during a child's adolescent years. The same years in which most develop an interest in sports.

My parents discouraged the viewing of boxing and Mixed Martial Arts when I was growing up. They believed the violence of a sport had no right place in my young and developing mind. All it could do was evoke dangerous thoughts in my mind. 

What thoughts can a kid get from watching MMA or UFC that aren't bad?

And it's not just these fighting leagues where bad images, and thoughts, are being injected into our youth's mind.

Mentioned before was the fact athletes of all sports are using drugs, running into trouble with the law and cheating. It's not just in sports that look bad at first glance.

Names like Michael Vick, O.J. Simpson, Chris Henry and Pete Rose not only have shattered their own reputations, but as well have set bad examples, and at a dangerously wide exposure level.

I appreciate the awareness and efforts given by my parents to help block out these bad influences.

I challenge everyone else to do the same for their children, family or friends.

Nothing good comes out of following the path a poor role model has set.