The higher they are, the harder they fall
Tell young sports fans the truth when champs turn into chumps
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. — Lance Armstrong wants you to believe that finally he is being honest about being dishonest. He describes his behaviour as “inexcusable,” and now waits to see if he may be excused.
Not even Oprah can take the ugly out of a scene like this.
Right about now is when the emails and phone calls start coming to my desk. Why does the newspaper make such big heroes out of sports figures? Would it kill you to write about the biochemistry professor who made an important medical discovery just across campus from the sold-out football stadium? There’s your headline.
It’s been 20 years since Charles Barkley made his point on this subject, saying in a Nike commercial: “I am not a role model. I’m not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models.”
There’s no use in disputing either of those views, for the simple reason that they are views not based in reality and unsupported by human nature.
Honour is naturally ascribed to those who achieve great things, from the days of chariot races to these days of tomahawk dunks. If some athlete proves personally unworthy of that honour, we will dig through a pile of refuse to find another hero, and if that doesn’t work out, we will dig through another.
Not a perfect world, of course, but then neither are the realms of politics and entertainment perfect, and all three components are devoured daily in portions greater than any scientific journal or sociology study or calendar of the arts ever will be.
So Armstrong comes off like a creep, and Manti Te’o like a meathead, and the late Joe Paterno like a worn-out cog at the heart of a shockingly dangerous machine.
The easiest thing to do, the laziest thing to do, is to declare oneself finished with the elevation of sports figures. Better, that argument goes, to line the sports page with box scores only and let readers worship the raw numbers rather than the rawer athletes who produce them.
Won’t work. The better players, the better coaches, will always have the biggest platforms. What they do with that is up to them, and what we do with it will never change for a variety of reasons.
The good guys are given the responsibility for raising the bar whether they like it or not. Parents and youth coaches point to the ones with clean records and gleaming smiles and winning personalities. When someone like that slips, it makes far more of a dent than all the other disappointments.
Many kids lack a parent who is willing and able to show them right from wrong. If there’s a sports figure telling them, at the very least, to stay in school and work hard, that can be significant, and it’s a message worth hearing.
When a sports champion turns out to be a chump, tell the truth, to yourself and to the kids. No man or woman is without flaw, no matter the size of their trophy collection. No sports event is bigger than life. No athlete can succeed at the highest level without support from family, coaches and teammates, and disappointing them would be a terrible loss in a lifetime of winning.
Maybe that’s enough to power past Armstrong and every sports scandal to come without descending entirely into a world without heroes. If you think this is bad, try that.