Professional Athletes Are Not A Role Model

“I am not a role model, I am not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball, doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” – Charles Barkley. Professional athletes are not the best people to be role models for kids. Steven Ortiz, a sociology professor at Oregon State and the author of several published studies on athletes ' bad behavior says, "Spoiled-athlete syndrome begins early in sports socialization. From the time they could be picked out of a lineup because of their exceptional athletic ability, they 've been pampered and catered to by coaches, classmates, teammates, family members and partners. As they get older, this becomes a pattern. Because they 're spoiled, they feel they aren 't accountable for their behaviors off the field. They 're so used to people looking the other way."
Not that they like the family men they are or that they give money to charity. But that’s the good that athletes do. Kids don’t see the bad. When children look at an athlete, they see a two-time Super bowl winning quarterback, not someone accused of sexual assault twice. If Kobe Bryant was a child’s role model, would they want to be a 5 time NBA champion, or cheat on his wife and be accused of cheating on his wife? You never know, kids are very impressionable. Monkey see, monkey do