DAVIDSON Devin Davidson Mrs.

Kyle English 103 Argument essay #3 12/16/05

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Should people be role models in sports? The day has come to finally bring to light the real question that is always lurking in sports, and thats should people in sports be role models. Is there a real purpose for those in the sports world to be parents to the kids that look up to them? These are the real reasons why people in sports have so much downfall and why everything gets so popularize. Like the steroid issue, who really cares that these people use steroids to boost there game on the baseball field. Sense the beginning of time, people have always been finding a natural or unnatural remedy to get there body to perform at the top and maximum level possible. But as you all see, when someone in the sports world has a son, or a daughter that gets themselves involved in it, and they die or become ill trying to follow a trend, all comes to light, should these people become accountable. My answer to you is no, why should they. Why should Barry Bonds be punished more severely then he would have if it was only about steroid just because. Why Marion Jones and others who run track should be punished just because they can handle getting over with steroids, and others cant. Its ridiculous to see that our heros in sports are being the forefront of every major step to take in getting rid of something that will never go away anyway. War, war is a statement to another to prove they are worthy of taking whats yours, it is a by any means necessary to get whats yours tactic. Growing up in Inglewood

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California I had a lot of fights and scraps with people on my block and in school about things that I probably should of never fought about. Like one day when I was about 8 years of age I went to school mad at my pops for getting angry at me about something my brother did, and wondered why he took it out on me. So when I got to school everyone I didnt like I had it in for, figuring that was the best way for me to pursue my anger. I saw this kid named Gilbert whom I was probably the most scared of until this point and thought that today was my day to be a another person and stand up to this boy. When he approached me like usual to what I figured to be messing with me, I went off on him and it wasnt a pretty site. When it was all said and done I had broke his jaw, and the problems at home never went away. Now I have two problems, one at school and one at home. Come to find out he was coming to me to offer me some gum and ask if I could play on his team in the basketball game against the teachers. The moral to this story is, and the point I want to get across is, one problem will never make up for another. If you dont tackle a problem at its own root, then that problem will never die and you will then only continue to create and manifest more and more problems in the future. You cant punish the greatest man to ever pick up a bat, just because it is speculated he has been doing something baseball players have been doing sense the beginning of baseball, because now you feel people will follow his method to the top, and potentially die from it. You cant punish a Kobe Bryant just because he does things all sports athletes married or not do, and its one of the main criterias for picking this profession, sleeping with lots of girls. I mean come on, why do we do what we do, why do men leave there families six months out of the year to play a game that is so repetitive and meaningless to society, but adored by so many at the same time. Ill tell you why, women. If it wasnt for women, there would not be a reason to use

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steroids, hit 50 home runs, or jumped out the sky, or run like the wind. Women run this society that is tainted with steroids, and drugs of all sorts. Its the reason I personally love sports today, and why I play two sports. It the reason Kobe can say Im sorry, and his wife will understand. Its not that she wants to say Kobe I understand, its just that she knew from the jump gate that her man would be wanted by women all over the world, and Kobe, a man, would give in to temptation every once and awhile, and she has to take that in order to live the lifestyle she lives. She must understand that Kobe is a man and will do what he wasnt when he wants, and she has no control over the relationship they have. Do I rest my case, maybe so? Do I make a great point, most definitely I do. Who can argue women run the world. Who can argue that kids at sixteen and seventeen that use steroids could care less that professional use it, and they get there inspirations individually throughout there own worlds. Of course they feel like they will get there because of it, but its up to that individual at that age to make a decision to work hard, or take the easy road. But to sum it all up, I tell you that the best way to get kids to stay away from that stuff, is to give them all good looking females by there side that are totally against those drugs and what it stands for. Give them all women surrounding them that will only sleep with them if there did things there way, give them females that respected there hard work, and loved them for them, and I bet you would never have to worry about drug use again, because we ask ourselves all the time why people in sports should be role models, when in reality there not, they do things for the same reason high school and college athletes do things, for fame and with that comes the unlimited sexual encounters with the opposite sex. Thats what it is all about, thats what makes the world rotate so great for professional athletes. Should you dare argue that this fact is not a true and the best most singled out fact of them all?

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Its so beautiful that they are situations in sports that are going on right now to prove my point the fullest extent of why I think sports figures should never be looked at as role models under any circumstances. Terrell Owens, a man with a personal mission to I think do something else other than football in his lifetime, and too put himself in the media as much as he can so that his image is out there for as long as he can keep it out there. This story, a story that is put more emphasis on then should be, is a story of a man just doing what a man does when he is trying to win vs. keeping at the top of his game in all aspects of one life. The story quote Receiver ran into trouble on familiar turf is saying that a man cant speak his mind about a struggling team, and that his actions on talking about a quarterback who cant play hurt or cant function on the field like another man with his same playing caliber, and it will get him suspended and expelled from his team. Read this story, When Owens agreed to have Ben singer speak with him at his Moorestown, N.J., home last Thursday, the Syracuse student pitched the interview to ESPN.com. They talked for an hour. Plans called for Owens' comments to run only on ESPN.com, in video and written form. But because Owens criticized the Eagles for not making a bigger deal about his 100th touchdown reception, and agreed with Michael Irvin's earlier contention on ESPN that the Eagles might be undefeated if Brett Favre were their quarterback, four to five minutes were used on that night's "SportsCenter."Those remarks and Owens' refusal to apologize directly to the team, as well as a training-room fight with former Eagle Hugh Douglas a day before the interview and other previous transgressions, led to Owens' suspension Monday. The point of that conversation was so Owens could give a man a way into the sports writing world and give him an edge on the rest of his competition. I have always felt

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Terrell Owens was a man who was a great figure to the world, but the way he gives his opinions will never appeal to the general manager world of sports, but for those who look up to him on the street understand what he is doing and love his whole approach on the world. As kids, as black kids in America, we are all brought up to never except failure, and to be a leader in all you do, no matter what it is. I say this because no one should be sympathetic to the failures of another, and just accept the downfalls of a team just because one man is struggling and unable to perform. In the team sports world, some cant afford to seek failure, and Owens is one of them. Owens is not a person who has won any superbowls, or has broken any real records other catching touchdowns in the n.f.l. he needs to keep his stock high in the world of sports to become a constant commodity when he is done with a certain venture, or when his contract has run out with a certain team. Now, on the role model stand point of this, kids see his crudeness, because the media glorify his crudeness, and not the fact that this mans life, and livelihood depends on a quarterback throwing him the ball, and if he cant deliver, and he still wants to play, that he is killing the stock of the athletes that depend on him. Thats all Owens was going with his recent remarks that got him suspended and fired from the eagles, but can he still be a role model to young kids, or the world that loves football or sports period. He can definitely still be known as a role model, how? He is a man who works out 7 hours a day, weights, cardio, and strength exercises. He keeps his body in tip top shape. He is always polite to the general public, he gives interviews to no name journalists, he signs autographs all the time, he gives to charity, and he gives directly back to his community solely and not through charity. He is a man who completes what he sets out to do, and I dont think he will stop until he gets on a team that is competing for a super bowl every year, and he has at least 2

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or 3 rings before he retires and goes to do something else. The eagles will never get over the top, like a lot of other organizations because they think that if they pay man money, he obviously was the right man for the job, and not that sometimes people makes mistakes. The bigger question derived from this all is that no sports figure should be looked at as a bigger figure than the parents you have grooming you right in your own household. And that the sports world is a world of entertainment for profit, not to take your kids out of the home, and raise them when you dont want to. Terrell is only one chosen person for this essay, but look into the world of sports, sports figures like Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman, Michael Jordan, Jose Conseco, who say Im not a role model, I just to play my game, and walk away and raise my own kids. Dont expect me to raise to your kids quoted from Charles Barkley and his interview couple years back with n.b.c. Coming into the end of the football season and the middle of the basketball season, it seems that now in the best time to bring to light how professional athletes are not role models. Im so glad Kobe is back to his old self, in the community giving hope to young kids. The football league players out in the hurricane Katrina communities donate time and money to rebuilding homes for the people who lose their lives down there. I am so glad that is going so well, because it sets up the fact that failure will become of the same people who giving so much. We must understand human beings, we all are subject to failure and mistakes, but it seems athletes mistakes are taking to the farthest level of defeat. I tell people all the time, what if pro athletes never gave back to the neighborhoods they represent? The hurricane Katrina world down there waiting almost two weeks for F.E.M.A. to come down and provide aid to the strict gin communities down there. Now no one reported the fact that pro athletes were there the day after providing boats, aid and shelter

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to those victims. We cant ever look past the mistakes they make because we are a society who loves mishaps and we all know the profit margin is so much better when we are reporting a mistake rather than a good deed. Professional athletes reacted to Hurricane Katrina as if their own families were affected. In some cases, they were, but that doesn't entirely explain why so many contributed time and money to hurricane relief. It's great to see athletes themselves contributing to the relief effort especially after the news has recently portrayed pro athletes as money hungry and only thinking of themselves. It is most refreshing to see so many high profile players give their time and money to help those whose lives were devastated in this natural disaster. Financial aid has been widespread. High school, college, professional athletes and coaches have helped raise money. Monday night's game between the New Orleans Saints and New York Giants was a centerpiece of the NFL's hurricane relief weekend. Even before the telethon for the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, the league, owners, players and NFL Players Association gave nearly $10 million. The Colts have payroll deduction for hurricane relief. NFL stars Warrick Dunn and Deion Sanders challenged players to donate money. Ron Artest and Jermaine O'Neal of the Indiana Pacers played in an NBA charity game at Houston. Each player donated at least $10,000 and O'Neal gave $100,000. Goes to show you how beneficial we(including me because I am also an athlete, and I also participated in raising money for charity through playing games or helping out with the red cross, blood giving,etc.) as athletes are to the world at large. We have the type of lives most of the world dream of, and it is understandable that once you reach the level of professional, people want to know if you are capable of keeping a status that you was voted

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into. For the most part, my vision for the future will be the kind of world were we all take action for what kids in our world do. We all have the ability to accept defeat and failure and not blame someone else for the mistakes made by the general public. My hopes for the future is one day see the general public not give professional athletes so much credit, and understand that if one man makes a mistake and gets away wit it, it is for everyone to follow suit. I love this quote, perfect quote from the most upstanding individual and athlete we have today, says "It's very much a personal issue with us," Peyton Manning said before the relief flight. It's certainly is pleasant to see the support of our nation's professional athletes to those in need during this time. Disasters like Hurricane Katrina become a personal issue for all of us, and while many may think professional athletes don't care about the general population, what they have done to help in the past weeks shows that they definitely do. How do you go against that? Should people in sports be role models? Keeping with the basis of paper I would say no, never. Looking into the world of disaster, and the way athletes always are obligated to respond, and the way the community depends on us for help in all phases of the game of disaster, and with all the reading and good deeds I have seen, I would end this by saying what I truly about this issue. My true heart says, athletes are already role models, and if you ask me, whether they like it or not, athletes are always going to be role models, societys great white hope!

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WORKS CITED Online L.A. Times Newspaper- (http://www.latimes.com/sports/football/nfl/la-spowenstv9nov09,1,1654899.story?coll=la-headlines-sports&ctrack=1&cset=true) Tyson B. Evensen (Staff Writer), The Etowian, Pro athletes lend hand to help victims of Katrina, no date on publishing http://www.etownian.com/050922/sports-pro_athletes_lend.asp Meghan Tierney, (USA TODAY) Sports world pitches in for Katrina relief effort

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Posted 8/31/2005 11:19 PM Updated 9/1/2005 10:59 AM http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2005-08-31-katrina-relief_x.htm TOM HSIEH, (The Yale Herald) The Power of Athletes SEPTEMBER 23, 2005 VOL. XL, NO. 4 http://www.yaleherald.com/article.php?Article=4359 John Galvin, Staff Writer (The Orion Online) Professional athletes organizing Katrina relief September 06, 2005 http://www.orion-online.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/09/06/431d2004b1464 The Associated Press and USA Todays Jarrett Bell contributed to this story (USA Today) Sanders solicits hurricane aid from athletes; trying time for Griffith, Posted 9/2/2005 5:23 PM, Updated 9/3/2005 7:21 PM. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2005-09-02-katrina-followup_x.htm