Role Models Discursive Essay
Are our Sports ‘Stars’ given too long a leash?
Throughout sport the talented are painted as role models. But as a role model, who by definition is a person who is looked to by others as an example to be imitated, are the sports people of today really living up to the standards from which they should? The ever increasing wealth of these sports ‘stars’ is inflating and so too are their egotistical ways and their negligent behaviour towards the example to which they should be setting. The fact is to a child today as they look up to these sports ‘stars’ and see them as role models, they see that as a society we grant them a free pass due to their talents. Is this really the message that we as a society want to send this generation of children, from whom it will just filter down to the next and the next? That their talents justify them living a different life to that of a ‘normal’ person, with a different set of rules to live by. The time has come that we need to put an end to this epidemic of role models failing to do what it says on the tin.
First I come to the curious case of Mario Balotelli. The 21-year-old Manchester City forward splits opinions with his erratic behaviour, from setting off fireworks in his own house, to continuing to indulge in cigarettes even now as a professional footballer. Least we forget the clear disregard for the £120,000 the forward is supplied with by his team. His disregard is shown for all to see in the way he just throws money away, for example leaving £1000 behind the bar of a pub, or buying a motorbike which he is banned from riding by his club. The way Balotelli spends this money shows his attitude towards it as disposable. In the current economic climate for a person to be able to do this shows a total lack of respect for the working class people in the UK where the average income for a weeks work is just a miniscule £500 compared to the vast quantity handed to the professional footballer. Is this the kind of role model we
Throughout sport the talented are painted as role models. But as a role model, who by definition is a person who is looked to by others as an example to be imitated, are the sports people of today really living up to the standards from which they should? The ever increasing wealth of these sports ‘stars’ is inflating and so too are their egotistical ways and their negligent behaviour towards the example to which they should be setting. The fact is to a child today as they look up to these sports ‘stars’ and see them as role models, they see that as a society we grant them a free pass due to their talents. Is this really the message that we as a society want to send this generation of children, from whom it will just filter down to the next and the next? That their talents justify them living a different life to that of a ‘normal’ person, with a different set of rules to live by. The time has come that we need to put an end to this epidemic of role models failing to do what it says on the tin.
First I come to the curious case of Mario Balotelli. The 21-year-old Manchester City forward splits opinions with his erratic behaviour, from setting off fireworks in his own house, to continuing to indulge in cigarettes even now as a professional footballer. Least we forget the clear disregard for the £120,000 the forward is supplied with by his team. His disregard is shown for all to see in the way he just throws money away, for example leaving £1000 behind the bar of a pub, or buying a motorbike which he is banned from riding by his club. The way Balotelli spends this money shows his attitude towards it as disposable. In the current economic climate for a person to be able to do this shows a total lack of respect for the working class people in the UK where the average income for a weeks work is just a miniscule £500 compared to the vast quantity handed to the professional footballer. Is this the kind of role model we