I was over at my sister's a few weeks ago and there was golf on the television. My nephew Jack, who is six years old, looked up at me and said, "I love Tiger Woods." I didn't know what to say. I wanted to steer him away from looking up to someone like Tiger, but I couldn't explain to him why. I just told him, "I like Phil Mickelson."
Now I see all these pictures of kids crying about Lebron James leaving The Cleveland Cavaliers and they are crushed by it. As I get older, I think about when I will have kids and how I don't want them looking up to athletes. When I was younger, one of my idols was Suns guard Jason Kidd. I played point guard on my grade school basketball team and I only wanted to play like Jason Kidd. He was an unselfish point guard who played to make his teammates better. There was even this cheesy commercial with clips of Jason Kidd and that Vertical Horizon song "Everything You Want" playing in the background. It's a terrible song, but I loved that commercial because I thought it summed up how great a person Jason Kidd was. The only problem was that he wasn't a great person, he was a great athlete, but I couldn't distinguish between the two as a kid. My world came crashing down when he was arrested for hitting his wife. I was sitting on the coffee table in my living room just staring at the television and wanting to believe he couldn't have done such a thing. I lived with my mom and three older sisters and respect for women had been hammered into my mind, so hitting women was unfathomable to me. I sat there in shock, just hoping that he was innocent.
But he wasn't and sports took on a different meaning for me that day. I never idolized an athlete like that again in my life. I look at my nephew's love of Tiger Woods and realize that he is going to feel that same disappointment one day. I don't want my kids to be let down like that, but how can you let them watch sports, and keep them from idolizing the players they cheer for? I want them to experience the same joy that sports have brought me and leave out all the pain, but I don't think the two can be separated. I can only hope that future athletes start to take the idea of being a role model a little more seriously.
It's hard because we want people that we emulate and look up to for one thing to be completely perfect in every realm of their lives. Popularity and celebrity and the power that it brings are most often the things that tear someone's personal life apart. It's a hard line to walk. Being a Pacers fan, I've had my share of thugs on my team, but through it all I know I can look to Reggie Miller as someone who walked the gauntlet of professional sports and came out on top and beloved by his fans.
ReplyDeleteI agree that people should aspire to be better role models, and especially those in the public eye.
ReplyDelete"I like Phil Mickelson" ha ha ha. Great response. Kids are going to look up to celebrities, whether it be sports stars or movie stars. Unfortunately, that rarely ends well because people are flawed, and thanks to the media, we get to see just how flawed our celebrities are. Everbody ends up learning the same lesson as you did with Jason Kidd, and it sucks every time. I guess it's just part of growing up.
ReplyDeleteI was never much in to sports but the importance of being a public role model, especially for children, should be a priority for athletes.
ReplyDeleteThis is a toughie! It's so hard for kids to distinguish between the career an athlete has and the person that that athlete is at home. Kids just don't have the capability to distinguish between the two. This is where I feel it's important that kids are taught that no matter how much success a person has, it doesn't mean that they are a good person. A kid should know that what is done on the court is not the same as what is done outside the court. Obviously you aren't going to bring up infidelity to a young child, but kids need to know that money or three pointers don't make a person. It's the person that makes the money and the shots.
ReplyDeleteIt's tough when the person is such a great athlete (or even artist/dancer/actor) but has an ugly personality. This is why I try not to think about these celebrities' personal lives and just appreciate their talent. Kids tend to idolize and it's hard to explain to them why they shouldn't be doing that.
ReplyDeleteI think that if we teach our children to understand that athletes are people too, with good and bad parts, and teach them to emulate the good parts and learn from the bad, that we will be teaching our children a very important lesson in life.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Susan. I agree.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree Susan. Athletes and people in the public eye are just as human as we are. Everyone makes mistakes but hopefully we can teach our kids to be good people and learn from others mistakes.
ReplyDeleteSusan, that was so well put. As much as it saddens me to see people like Tiger Woods do the things he did, he is a person too, at the end of the day.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up some really valid points, and I appreciate your point of view. As the mom of a boy who loves sports, these are serious things to take into consideratiion. I think my son can differentiate, but this is a conversation I definitely need to have.
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