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Platinium Pubu

IRALB

Papa Shango

Loose Sluts With Big Tits

The Dude

Kafella Molla Molla 1
Professor Clemence
English 110
12 November 2003

Athletes as Heroes


What defines a person as a hero will vary from person to person. One central concept that people agree with is that a hero is a person who goes above and beyond than what they need to. In a steady trend since the early 1920’s athletes have moved from mere sports figures to heroes. Our society now caters to their every need. They have become unaccountable for their actions and they are able to do as they please. Athletes have become a center focus of our media as there are channels on the television focusing just on sports themselves. But why have they been receiving all this attention? Recently a certain athlete named Kobe Bryant has been receiving plenty of attention. Not for his athletic abilities but for his recent moral mishaps. He is now standing trial for the sexual assault of a certain young woman. What makes the situation worse that he is married and has a young child.
Currently Bryant is being charged with sexual assault of a 19 year old women. The sexual assault supposedly occurred in a hotel. If he is convicted he could face 4 years in prison or even a life sentence. He doesn’t deny the fact that he had sex with the woman but he does say that he feels bad that he has betrayed his wife. He was quoted as saying, "You know. I didn't force her to do anything against her will. I'm innocent. You know. I sit here in front of you guys furious at myself. Disgusted at myself for making a mistake of adultery. I love my wife with all my heart. She's my backbone."
Kobe Bryant did not start out his career as a typical NBA player. His father played professionally with a variety of teams. He was lucky enough to practice with the 76ers while in his teenage years. With his skill he was able to take his high school team, Lower Merion High School, from last in the state to earning Class AAAA. While playing for Lower Merion as a senior he was able to earn many awards such as Naismith Player of the Year, Gatorade Circle of Champions High School Player of the Year, and became a McDonald's All-America Team member. He would later skip playing college basketball and go straight playing for the NBA. He was selected by the Hornets and later traded to the Lakers to be the first person on their team to not play in college basketball. He had a excellent first season as a rookie averaging 31 points a game with 8 rebounds. With the help of Shaq the Lakers were able to win the 2000, 2001, and 2002 finals.
Kobe’s career is what almost every young child that plays basketball dreams of: to be able to go straight from high school basketball to play for the NBA. The thing startling about it is how few of them will actually make it into the NBA. Only a small percentage of them make it into college basketball let alone professional. The unfortunate outcome is that the children won’t focus on their education but focus on their basketball skill, which has a limited pathway. What is startling about this is the actual numbers. "66% of African American youths in the 8th grade believe that they would play in professional basketball even though .09% of them would even make it to a professional league,� ( Ana Hristova-1).
Yet the youth strive for this goal because of the glamorous lifestyle that they live and the amount of money that they earn. For example, Bryant signed a 30 million dollar contract with the Lakers and that doesn’t include the endorsements he receives. Bryant has endorsements from various companies such as Nike, McDonald's, Sprite, Upper Deck, and Spalding. He may not receive be able to receive any more endorsements pending his trail.
But why has our society become engulfed with the entertainment industry and not other fields such as the medical and teaching field. It seems that it has become more of a perversion of the American dream. Originally the dream was simply work hard and you can have a happy life, but as our society progressed it got more lazy and greedy. It seems that athletes have become a way for our society to vicariously achieve their unachievable goals. With the way our society being more of a reward driven society than a self-fulfillment society, we let the athletes get away with what they want because they were able to achieve their goals and succeed.
Children seem to be more affected than any other age group in the idolization of athletes. With children receiving a greater amount of pressure than any previous generation and with the parents spending less and less time with them it is not surprising that a child not want to grow up and be an professional athlete. It provides many easy solutions for them. They can achieve the goals that their parents are putting on them, wealth. It would provide attention, which is not as received as much. It is also a way of rebellion towards their parents. In an acticle by McNiff it is cited that the failure of parents is the reason of the idolization. "The failure as parents they must spend more time with the children and try to find them new role models or even be their role models themselves.�
But is the athlete at fault for having children idolizing them? Many experts say no and it is more of the responsibility of the parents to guide their children and not just another persona that is featured on the television. Charles Barkley believes this also and states that children should look upon their parents and not him as a role model. He received lots of heat for that statement but its something that is simple and makes sense. Athletes are rushed out onto the spotlight. They are only given time to develop their athletic skills and not moral behavior. As cited by McNiff, “It is far too early to idolize the athlete as a person. That requires a lifetime of worthy accomplishment in the human arena.� They become exposed to a new environment with a sense of complete unaccountability for their actions.
Recently Bryant has been receiving a lot of heat from the alleged allegations. He admits to having sex with the woman but not sexually assaulting her, which could lead Bryant to life in prison. But because of Bryant’s status as a professionally paid athlete she is being called the accuser instead of the victim and is trying to take advantage of the situation to make money. This isn’t the first time that an athlete has been put in the spot light for his criminal msibehavior. For example, Randy Moss ran into some issues with drugs. Instead of being charged with a felony he received a misdemeanor, and if he were to stay out of trouble for the next four years his record would be cleared. Because of Moss’ status as an athlete he was able to receive lesser charges and more than likely the same would be fore Bryant.
In an event that a child’s favorite athlete does fall in a negative spotlight it is hard on the child. It's something that can’t be simply brushed over because the child may think it is acceptable behavior if he or she were to get away with it. It is suggested that the parents talk to the child about what happened and try to get the child to focous on another type of figure such as a doctor, politician, or even a minister. The kind of people are able to provide a direct benefit to society and can be better role models for a child.
One question that does come up is do athletes provide any direct benefit to society? The average income for professional athletes is around 1.2 million dollars. This type of income is reserved usually for business people who help maintain and run large international corporations. All athletes do is provide a means of amusement for people in their recreation time. Sure they do provide a draw to a city or generate income for the city but its expensive to maintain the roster of athletes. The Orlando Magic were offering Shaq $115 million to renew his contract and to stay with them but the Lakers offered him $120 million to move on to a different team. To account for such a large increase in payroll the Lakers had to increase the tickets of the cheapest seats in the house from a mere 9.50 to 21 dollars doubling the price of tickets.
By modern definition a hero is defined as a person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life. An athlete doesn’t fit that profile. Some athletes may do some things on purpose like Magic Johnson who setup a foundation to help education people about HIV so that people could have awareness and not contract it themselves. The only reason he did do this do was because he attained the virus by sleeping with a numerous amounts of women. When Johnson did try to return to the court and play he became more of a stigma than a great player. His fellow athletes didn’t show tolerance or awareness and didn’t want to play with him. Is this something that you want to the youth to see that it is alright to show intolerance towards others?
Athletes also do have a sense of nobility. They have become the high class getting special treatment above others. What do they do with this status that they receive from our society? They abuse it. They use it to get away with any negative actions they may have done or they get special treatment and get away with a much lesser punishment. Athletes rarely sacrifice their lives. They usually give up their education. Instead of taking advantage of their paid higher education they take the easier classes so that they can just play in college and make it to a professional league. Unfortunately, only a small portion of them will be able to play professionally. Some even skip college all together and go straight to the pros like Bryant and Lebron James. The problem with this is that the youth idolize them and follow in their footsteps. So they sacrifice their education, which is something that is vital right now in our society and that is going to be even more important later on.
By the older defition of hero, “In mythology and legend, a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods.� There wouldn’t be an issue with calling a hero and an athlete. Athletes do possess greater strength and ability than the average person. Many athletes do have parents that did play professional so they do fit that creatia. Also, most people would agree that it is a gift of God to be able to be that good and to make it that far. Many athletes are also celebrated for their bold exploits. They have their name all over television. Some athletes even have their own clothing line (i.e. their own line of shoes because of their triumphs as an athlete). But that is based on an old definition of the word back in mythological times, which really doesn’t provide much of relevance in today’s society. Also key parts of the definition really don’t fit the criteria but are merely similar to it.
Athletes have gained great recognition in our society but they haven’t done much with it. With the recognition they receive they use it to benefit themselves. Living a lavish life and not really benefiting others but themselves. In some instances they are actually harming others with their found success. Some athletes use their status to get out any trouble they may encounter instead of facing the issue as a responsible adult. The youth see this behavior and they try to model themselves after this. Instead of focusing on goals they focus their time on playing sports. They see outrageous behavior and they grow up seeing that it is all right for them to act like that because of the little or no accountability that is found for the people that they are idolizing. Athletes should not be heroes. They should be acknowledge for the great skill in their given sport but they should not have the status that they have now. It should be reserved for people who have done more for society.

When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fullfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and be taken as prisoners to all nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
...At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.
Luke 21:20-28