Elegy for the Role Model

"Help me help you."

If it were only that simple. If sports agents were more like Jerry Maguire and less like Drew Rosenhaus, maybe we wouldn't find ourselves in this predicament. Who knows when it all started. We should have known that something needed to be fixed when Latrell Sprewell claimed that he couldn't "feed (his) family" on $14.6 million dollars per year. Gone are the days of heroes like Lou Gehrig. In the 21st Century, we have dubious heroes such as Lance Armstrong. Sure we can admire his superhuman feats of strength, but we have the "Did he or didn't he?" debate gnawing at the back of our minds.

Now, we have athletes like Michael Vick, Ugueth Urbina and the Cincinnati Bengals. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only motivation for an athlete to be an upstanding citizen is to maximize his endorsement potential. Take Michael Phelps for example: before he even returned from Beijing, after setting the Olympic record for most gold medals won in a single Games, he was fielding offers from companies who had already drawn up ad-pitches and hundred million dollar contracts.

Something is broken in North American professional sports that desperately needs to be fixed. There is a new focus on money that simply did not exist before. Sure, everybody likes to be valued in the workplace; however, when athletes refuse to play when they are already making $10+ million dollars per season, that is bringing it to a different level.

Sports leagues need to hold their athletes (and their former athletes) more accountable. But in order to do so, they need to educate their athletes on the responsibility they hold to the community that invests in them. They need to institute programs such as the NFL rookie orientation, that introduces players to the challenges and pressures they will face outside the field of competition. The NBA estimates that 60% of its athletes are bankrupt within 5 years of retiring. With such staggering numbers, how can the league not take action to educate their players on how to better handle their finances and their personal lives?

While these programs cannot guarantee that aberrant behavior is a thing of the past, it is a step in the right direction to rehabilitate the 21st Century Athlete.

If leagues don't take these steps, extreme cases such as OJ Simpson, Jose Canseco, and Adam "don't call me Pacman" Jones will continue to persist. Individuals like these are a blemish on the sport and, unfortunately, grab headlines before the good that happens on the field of competition. The media shares some of the blame; however, if they did not have so much fodder with which to lambaste the athletes, the headlines couldn't possibly be as juicy.

Perhaps it is unfair to blame Drew Rosenhaus. Maybe we've reached an age where personal conduct no longer matters - only the almighty dollar is important. But I refuse to believe that. I'd prefer to think that, with education, the good side of athletes will prevail - the good side of humanity will prevail.

We can save the Role Model from extinction. Just help me help you.