My favorite sportswriter from my previous city has a good piece up advising us to ditch pro athletes as our idols. Read it and see if you can argue against the conclusion:
Let’s hold ourselves to the standards we hold athletes. Let’s be our own role models and role models to our kids and the kids we come in regular contact with. Let us take on the responsibility of being someone’s hero.
Athletes don’t want the responsibility, aren’t prepared for the responsibility and can’t handle the responsibility. The leagues they work for make them pretend they’re role models because it makes the leagues more profitable.
You and I don’t work for the NBA, NFL, NHL or Major League Baseball, so we have no incentive to fall for the charade.
We’d be a lot better off if we reserved our role models to people we know and who know us. And indeed, living like someone else’s inspiration depended on us.
