Professional Athletes are NOT Role Models

During the last 48 hours, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend within the sports industry. It has nothing to do with the game itself, and has all to do with who’s playing and spectating. Professional athletes are regarded as role models and influential figures to the younger generations that have their posters and pictures tacked all over their walls.



I’m confident countless adolescents in the greater New York area grew up idolizing Lawrence Taylor during the 1980’s. Thirty years later, he’s charged with raping a 16-year-old runaway. To put this in perspective, if you were 10-years old during Taylor’s MVP season in 1986, you’d be about 34-years old today. Let’s say you had a kid when you were 22, your son or daughter would be within the age range (12-16) as the girl Taylor was accused of having unwanted sexual relations with.

If the player you grew up idolizing was accused of such a heinous crime, what would you do? Better yet if you have or plan on having children, how do you explain to them that their favorite football player is a criminal?

Many of us can just say, “yeah but Lawrence Taylor is just an isolated incident”

And I say “oh really?”



Remember former Carolina Panthers receiver Rae Carruth? He was a conspirator in his pregnant girlfriend’s murder and was later found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle, and using an instrument to destroy an unborn child in 1999. Carruth is now serving a sentence of at least 18 years and 11 months at Nash Correctional Institution near Rocky Mount, North Carolina.


What about JaMarcus Russell? He isn’t a criminal by any means, but what he did do was steal time from the Oakland Raiders. They got an employee who lacked a work ethic, didn’t care about the organizations success, and failed to learn tactics (playbook) that were obligations in his contract. In the real world Russell would have been a dead beat and fired significantly sooner then he was.


I’m sure somewhere in Raider Nation or even in LSU Country someone has a JaMarcus Russell jersey. I’m also fairly certain a large percentage is children. When Russell doesn’t show a hard working attitude or fails to learn the playbook, this subliminally tells kids who look up to JaMarcus Russell that it’s ok. It’s ok to be lazy and it’s ok to skip homework because at the end of the day, if you have superior talent it will always out-rule hard work and determination.

A research study done by the San Diego Union-Tribune reveled that NFL players are theoretically better behaved then the American population. The NFL roughly has one arrest per 47 players per year since 2000, including injured reserve lists, according to the database. Where as the American population has one arrest per 21 people per year (around 4,800 arrests per 100,000 inhabitants) and one arrest per 25 people age 18 and over, according to the FBI.

I just want to make this 100% clear, I’m not a parent but one thing I do know, is what is right and what is wrong. I’m also not preaching a boycott of professional sports, all I ask is one thing: To inform these younger generations that when their favorite player “messes up” that they know these players are just people like themselves; people with exceptional athletic ability.