Double Standards for Professional Athletes

Professional athletes have always had their legacies questioned. Sure, there have been athletes such as Lou Gehrig, Walter Payton and David Robinson that have been beyond reproach, but for every role model in professional sports there is at least one, if not more, Pete Rose, Michael Vick or Isiah Thomas to give the sport, and their own names, a bad reputation.

So the perennial questions have been: How do we honor these athletes, if at all? And do their accomplishments on the field outweigh their actions off the field? Especially in a year where we've seen the implosion of Vick's career, the asterisk on Barry Bonds' record breaking home run ball, and the controversy surrounding Don Shula's dismissal of the Patriots' season as "tainted", these questions remain at the forefront of professional sports.

Perhaps the most intuitive way to balance our expectations of professional athletes, without making any individual value judgments, is to examine the way we honor our athletes. Arguably the preeminent honor that can be accorded to any individual athlete, in any sport, is induction into their respective Hall of Fame. Yet when we visit these institutions, what we see enshrined is not their personal characteristics or their contributions to their communities, but rather the statistics they compiled and descriptions of their athletic prowess.

So it appears that in the way we evaluate which athletes are praiseworthy, we generally disregard any personal transgressions. Even when we simply take an interest in athletes, regardless of whether or not we choose to lavish praise on them, it is evident that these are the athletes who perform at an exceptionally high level. You hardly ever see interviews with the bench warmer for a reason; even if they're the model citizen, people simply don't care if they aren't producing on the field.

Yet we still see the curious examples of athletes being better known for their personal failures rather than what they managed to accomplish athletically, no matter the magnitude of their achievements. For example, Pete Rose is synonymous with gambling, Vick with dog fighting, and Isiah Thomas with sexual harassment and the debacle that is the New York Knicks locker room. So why, if we are so preoccupied with their athletic accomplishments, do we care so much about their personal character? Part of it stems from our desire to cast athletes as positive role models; perhaps a justification for the obscene amount of money we throw at them for something that the rest of America does for recreation.

We've almost created this unrealistic persona for our athletes - a classic American success story that is inhumanly gregarious and desires nothing more than to give back to those who are less fortunate. We've bought into this idealistic image so much that when we happen upon an athlete such as Barry Bonds who isn't as outgoing or warm and friendly, we try to find fault and diminish their achievements or attribute it to some external circumstance.

Even with successful athletes who are also model citizens, such as Tim Duncan, we find fault by calling them boring or dirty or anything else that detracts from their notable achievements. In truth we've built up this overly romanticized image of athletes as not only physically superhuman, but also impeccable in character; so much that when they fall short of our expectations, we unflinchingly denounce them as terrible individuals.

The other side of it is a simple envy that we feel towards professional athletes. Clearly this is something that extends far beyond sports. We're always inclined to resent those who are more successful than we are, from job promotions to grades in school; there is always the sentiment that we deserved it more than the other person.

Especially when we look at these professional athletes who have gained immense wealth, fame and success simply for being able to put a ball in a hoop or throw a ball farther than the rest of us, we can't help waiting eagerly for them to fail. But to be fair, this is a sentiment that's perpetuated by more than just the fans; the players and coaches are equally at fault for creating an atmosphere where success can only be achieved through the relative failures of others.

In truth, the moral degradation of professional athletes is no more than a mirage that thrives upon our inherent jealousy and unrealistic expectations. When we look at academics, journalists or businessmen, we evaluate them on their ability to perform their jobs.

We don't make value judgments such as "Johnny is a brilliant mathematician but he snorts coke during his lunch breaks so whatever he does to advance the field of mathematics doesn't count" but we're more than willing to say "Ricky Williams is a gifted running back but he's also a habitual marijuana user and socially awkward so whatever he accomplishes on the field is tainted."

This double standard is not only ridiculous, but exerts and unnecessary pressure on athletes, some of whom are straight out of high school. It's about time that we recognize athletes for what they are - athletes, nothing more, nothing less. After all, they are simply human.